The Navy is seeking participants for an upcoming 2024 event, called Silent Swarm, that will experiment with using swarming small unmanned systems of all types (UxS) to disrupt an opponent’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum used on small unmanned systems of all types (UxS).

Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division (NSWC Crane) is the lead entity on this two week-long series of test events scheduled for the summer of 2024.

The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division tested emerging electromagnetic disruption equipment developed by civilian contractors in Alpena, Mich. during Exercise Silent Swarm 23, on July 20, 2023. (Photo: U.S. Army National Guard by Maj. Megan Breen)
The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division tested emerging electromagnetic disruption equipment developed by civilian contractors in Alpena, Mich., during Exercise Silent Swarm 23, on July 20, 2023. (Photo: U.S. Army National Guard by Maj. Megan Breen)

The notice said Silent Swarm will be “a series of events focused on experimentation with early development Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) capabilities that can be employed on small, multi-domain Unmanned Systems (UxS).”

“The Silent Swarm series provides a challenging and flexible experimentation environment to enable rapid development of emerging technology,” the notice added.

The notice argued participants chosen for the exercise will be able to further develop technologies while they operate in an “operationally-relevant sandbox environment” alongside subject matter experts from the joint operational and technical communities.

The event is seeking technologies at the Technology Readiness Levels of 2 – 5 deployed on “swarming, small, attritable UxS.” However, the Navy said lower technology readiness level initiatives that do not meet constraints to be integrated on these kinds of small platforms “will still benefit from Silent Swarm participation.”

Silent Swarm 2024 is billed as focused specifically on “distributed electromagnetic attack (EA), deception, and digital payload delivery.”

The notice said distributed EA here means using things like high power microwaves to deny, degrade, disrupt and deceive adversary capabilities focusing on high frequency to Ku-bands. The Navy is looking for a capability that is “ideally less than” 25 pounds or under 10 pounds for Unmanned Aerial Systems that would have the effect of many small autonomous vehicles carrying small low-cast jammers or smart sensors and “hinder adversary spectrum sensing.”

Notably, the Navy defined swarming as “decentralized, self-organized systems operating cooperatively to accomplish their intended goal” with no minimum number of systems operating together. 

The deception segment of Silent Swarm is geared at using distributed capabilities “to create chaos and confusion in the spectrum through RF means” by targeting command and control, situational awareness and decision-making processes of adversaries. These systems should be able to mimic a signal of interest  to clutter and give false targets to “deny adversary ability to maintain an accurate picture of the operational environment.”

Digital payload delivery was defined as capabilities that help blind, see or target adversaries by degrading their ability to use the electromagnetic spectrum and share information over tactical networks. 

This delivery is then meant to perform reconnaissance in cyber and RF domains; deny adversary ability to  keep an accurate picture of the operational environment; degrade or deny adversary access and control of their command and control networks; and test new equipment, capabilities, techniques, tactics and procedures in a multi-domain environment.

NSWC Crane also wants to include participants working on enabling technologies like distributed electromagnetic warfare support, swarming, intelligent algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning, resilient communications, and small unmanned air, surface, underwater and ground vehicles.

The Navy plans for this experimentation series to culminate in a series of vignettes, or operationally relevant scenarios where technologies or initiatives will participate in teams to demonstrate their capabilities. This specifically covers the land, air, sea, undersea, cyber and space domains.

The notice said while the capability and modularity to integrate into various UxS is not a requirement “it will add value to initiatives’ involvement over the course of the two weeks of the Silent Swarm experimentation event.”

Participating initiatives or technologies for Silent Swarm will initially attend virtual and in-person planning workshops Nov. 14 – 16. They are expected to be willing to collaborate with other participants for the in-person Silent Swarm event in July 2024.

The Navy is offering participants the opportunity to establish a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with NSWC Crane. They will also be given the opportunity to conduct several multi-domain experiments, run risk-reduction simulations with a government modeling/simulation team, receive real-time feedback from military operators and receive a final report with documented feedback.

Responses with program/idea/concept white papers are due by Oct. 16.

Previously, the Navy wrapped up its Silent Swarm 2023 exercise in July that sought to further develop early-stage electromagnetic spectrum operations capabilities. This most recent iteration included over 309 technology initiatives participating in the event in Alpena, Mich., at the National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC).