Defence Science Technology Laboratory
Details
This Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) competition, run on behalf of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), aims to identify and develop novel technologies that could be exploited in the development of a new category of missile cooperative missiles.
Cooperative missiles can communicate with each other, share situational awareness and organise themselves to work together efficiently to achieve a common objective. The aim of the work is to investigate how inter-missile communication and cooperative behaviours can be technically achieved to solve UK military challenges.
It is envisioned that by working together, cooperative missiles will offer the UK armed forces far more capability in the future than they have today. There are many benefits to enabling cooperation between missiles. For example, when considering collateral damage during missions or the live updating of safety data within missions if non-combatants enter the battlefield post-launch. This information could be shared by cooperative missiles to ensure an abort function is carried out live during a mission, under human operator authority.
UK defence systems enabled by AI, including missiles, will always be subject to context appropriate human involvement. For this competition, we are only interested in technologies that could enable cooperation between missiles.