The Pentagon has begun shifting away from training troops to operate individual drones, instead preparing its force to command entire drone swarms through spoken instructions.
Backed by a $100-million prize challenge, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) is searching for a company to develop “Orchestrator,” a voice- and text-based software designed to control fleets of aerial, ground, and maritime drones.
Under DIU requirements, drone swarms must interpret commands issued by voice or text, fuse data to coordinate across the entire fleet in real time, and operate within clearly defined constraints set by the human operator.
Interested companies will be tested through multiple competitive phases, each addressing increasingly complex swarm operations. Only those that pass each stage will be considered for follow-on contracts.
“The [Department of Defense’s] fleet of autonomous vehicles is the future of warfighting – but they are nothing without the intelligence and experience of the operator,” DIU Acting Deputy Director Michael Dodd said.
“This Prize Challenge will deliver a human-machine interaction layer that will directly impact the lethality and effectiveness of these systems.”
Big Digital Push
The DIU is requiring the Orchestrator to be delivered as a software-only solution, with no physical platforms included.
The system must be compatible with existing military vehicles and require minimal modification to integrate across different platforms.
Because future drone swarms are expected to operate in GPS- and communications-denied environments, the Orchestrator must remain functional under contested conditions, including without access to cloud-based data.
The DIU has set a January 25 deadline for companies to take on the challenge.
“If a company can deliver, they will receive substantial rewards. If they can’t, we will move on,” DIU Acting Director Emil Michael said.
“The ones who show they can perform will move immediately into follow‑on contracts so we can field these capabilities at scale for our fighting force.”
