Imagine a swarm of rubber band-catapulted armed mini-drones flying in large formations over a battlefield? Now, ponder the fact that each drone was modified, armed and operationalised from off-the-shelf models worth less than $200 each. The future of aerial warfare has landed.
China recently demonstrated this possibility when state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation launched a record-breaking 119 drones in mission formation. The breakthrough was not in the numbers per se; rather it was in “swarm intelligence” — the harmonic integration of multiple low-tech drones with smart sensors and artificial intelligence (AI).
Future warfare will likely be asymmetric in terms of size,
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