A NATO member has rushed the production of swarm drones — a technology not seen even in Ukraine — as part of an effort to learn from Russia’s invasion and prepare its own defenses.
Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson told Business Insider that his country identified the capability while watching Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, where drones have been used more than in any other conflict in history.
Jonson said it was “a project that we developed very quickly, in less than a year,” where traditionally it “might have taken five years.”
He said it would be tested in a NATO-led exercise, and that one soldier could autonomously control up to 100 drones.
Swarming AI drones
Swarm drones allow operators or artificial intelligence systems to get a host of drones to work together, either to surveil or attack.
While groups of drones can be pre-programmed to work collectively, swarm drones are different and can be much more powerful: They are interconnected and can use AI to react in real time to moving targets or incoming enemy defenses.
In January, Sweden unveiled new swarm drone technology developed by its armed forces and Swedish company Saab.
Saab told Defense News that each drone has a different capability, like having sensors, a payload, or communication tech.
Swarm drones “operate as one,” James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, told BI.
This, he said, opens up “a whole world of tactics and strategies that we’ve not even thought of yet.”
Watching the war
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised concern across Europe that Russia could attack elsewhere on the continent, prompting soaring defense spending and reflections on what militaries need to do to be more ready.
Western militaries have taken a host of lessons from the war, with drones being a key one.
Both Russia and Ukraine have leaned heavily on drone tech and tactics, with Ukraine producing naval drones that have damaged Russian warships, drones that use AI, and drones that don’t rely on GPS, in order to sidestep Russian jamming.
But swarm drones have not been seen — at least not yet.
Zachary Kallenborn, a drone warfare expert at King’s College London, told BI he was not aware of any drones truly collaborating together.
It’s notable, then, that Sweden has identified this as a key takeaway.
Jonson said swarming drones came from a review by Sweden’s defense commission, which was tasked with finding lessons from the war that Sweden should adopt.
“This was something that we identified from the ministry in close dialogue with the armed forces: that we needed to invest into the capability of drones,” he said.
A rush to create
Jonson said Sweden’s swarm drone development has taken place so fast because it was done “in a slightly unconventional way,” with closer collaboration than usual between the Swedish Armed Forces, Sweden’s defense procurement agency, and the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
Related stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
It’s not clear when the drones could be ready to be deployed.
Rogers said it would be “unprecedented” to fully develop the capability in around a year.
“I’m wary of any claims that anyone is able to deploy a true, effective, tested drone swarm within 18 months of standing up a project,” he said. “But it’s certainly a gap in the European arsenal and the NATO arsenal.”
Mauro Gilli, a senior researcher in military technology at ETH Zurich, added that “even if they do it in two years, it will be really, really remarkable.”
Getting it right on the battlefield
Swarm drones are a technology that other NATO members are working on.
Kallenborn, the King’s College London drone expert, said the challenge for swarm drone makers is “getting it right on the battlefield,” where getting technology to work in a complex space “can be a challenge.”
Many warfare experts say drone technology moves so fast that the West should not pump out tons of drones too quickly, as they could soon be outdated.
Instead, said Kallenborn, Western countries should focus on learning what capacities they need and their ability to make them at scale, “but actually doing so does seem quite premature.”
While swarm drones have not been seen in Ukraine, Gilli told BI that the success of regular drones in military situations likely justified the investment.
He said that drones have allowed Ukraine — with far less manpower than Russia, and with notable artillery shortages — to slow Russia’s attack.
According to Rogers, Ukraine has likely not fielded swarm drones yet because it’s faster and cheaper to focus on increasing and innovating existing drone types, rather than on entirely new technology.
But they could be in Ukraine’s future.
Mykhailo Fedorov, the head of Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Affairs, said in February that Ukraine was pushing to create swarms of drones controlled by artificial intelligence.
Play to your strengths
The need to make weapons fast has been a key lesson from Ukraine, and many Western leaders and experts have warned that the West is making them too slowly.
Jonson said the war shows the West must work on “strengthening our defense industrial production.”
He called it an area where Sweden likes to think “we punch above our weight because we have a very strong and sizable defense industrial base.”
Samuel Bendett, a drone technology and Russian defense expert at the Center for Naval Analyses, told BI that swarm drones are advantageous for militaries with smaller populations, or that invest a lot into training each soldier — something Western militaries typically do more than Russia.
They would let militaries field “multiple types of robotic systems in place of a single soldier,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jonson advised any Swedish allies who do not have drone programs — or are not investing in drones — to do so, because “this is an aspect of contemporary warfare that has become very clear, has a very significant role on the battlefield in Ukraine.”
