Ready for the race: Air separation drone swarms vs. air defence systems

In late March 2024, regional press announced that Chinese researchers had developed a military grade air separation drone model able to split into up to six separate drones.

Researchers at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, however, said the smaller drones could also operate together as a swarm, collaborating to complete a mission, with different drones taking on different tasks such as command, reconnaissance, tracking or launching a strike.

China’s breakthrough in air separation and swarm technology could significantly change drone warfare just as the conflict in Ukraine has been underlining the growing importance of drones on the modern battlefield.

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Current anti-drone air defence systems prioritise between drones when faced with a fleet of independent units on the battlefield, so a coordinated and rapidly multiplying drone swarm could overwhelm present systems in theory; China’s drone systems, however, remain untested in real battlefield conditions which could limit their early models’ real-world effectiveness for now.

Nevertheless, the invention and now near-future arrival of fleets of swarming air separation drone units will pose a challenge to emerging anti-drone systems such as the UK’s Dragonfire laser air defence programme.

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) tested the system in March and Dragonfire has now been marketed as an accurate but cost-effective means to defend ground units against aerial attacks, including drone fleets, with a price of $13 a shot.

The MoD will not reveal the laser’s maximum effective range, but claimed it could strike a coin from a range of 0.6 miles, and is pushing directed energy weapons as a counter to drone fleets (although Dragonfire was tested before Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics unveiled its air separation drone model).

A spokesperson for one of the companies behind Dragonfire (together with Leonardo and QinetiQ), air defence manufacturer MBDA Systems, also points out that Dragonfire was not designed as just an anti-drone system. It was simply being trialled against drones as the majority of today’s complex weapon systems are.

The UK’s MoD will has claimed that Dragonfire could strike a coin from a range of 0.6 miles. (Photo: UK Ministry of Defence)

MBDA markets its SkyWarden system as the company’s primary scalable Counter Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) product. Skywarden can target miniature reconnaissance models, likely similar to the size of a component drone built into a larger Chinese air separation drone.

Shaan Shaikh, a fellow at the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that laser systems like Dragonfire “can be effective against small drone swarms given their rapid, precise engagements and so-called ‘unlimited’ magazine”. 

“They are limited, however, to line-of-sight targets and can only attack one target at a time, making them vulnerable to a fleet of air separation drones capable of acting as multiple coordinated swarms of up to six units,” he noted. 

Of the Chinese claimed air separation drone breakthrough, he added: “Given time for the technology to mature, drone swarms will absolutely affect air defence tactics. [In the future, Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems(S-UAS)] swarms may…provide a cost-effective means to saturate an adversary’s air defences.”

“Advances in [artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)] may also enable [big] S-UAS swarms,” Shaikh remarked. “These are large, coordinated and at least semi-autonomous group operations, but thus far, there have been few if any attacks that fit this strict definition.

“Once mass drone swarm technology is established, however, it will be an increasingly difficult threat to intercept. In those cases, the best option for defenders may be ‘left-of-launch’ strikes on C2 nodes and ground-control stations associated with the attack.”

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) constitute a “key modern element of US–China military competition”, according to Shaikh. 

“China has employed a wide range of UAS designed for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR), targeting and battle damage assessment, data relay and communications support, electronic warfare, strike missions and suppression of enemy air defences,” he said. 

“Such mission diversity has led Beijing to field UAS across its military services,” Shaikh added. “Chinese quadcopters – particularly those produced by Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI) – also dominate the global commercial drone industry. In response, the US has been investing in a wide range of counter-drone systems using missiles, bullets, collision drones, lasers, microwaves, jammers, streamers and nets.”

AI systems will likely be used to enable future air defences to target drone swarms. (Image: OpenAI’s DALL·E)

Shaikh said: “In examining counter-drone systems, we often focus on costs. [For example], the UK MoD shows off that the DragonFire only costs $13 per shot. That’s excellent, but cost shouldn’t be our only consideration.

“We should also evaluate defences based on their capabilities and target set, manpower and energy requirements, transportability and useability,” he continued. “These modalities all have their own unique pros and cons, which is why there’s strength in platform diversity. This is why it’s repeated ad nauseum that there’s no “silver bullet” – no one [counter-drone] system to rule them all.”

The race between drones and counter-drone systems has remained a fast-evolving field given the recent application of AI/ML systems to the field here, as elsewhere. AI/ML systems will likely enable air defences like laser or microwave systems to target drone swarms as much as they are likely to enable drones to act together en masse.

For now, the emerging anti-drone systems may still have the edge over China’s early-stage air separation drone swarms. These still resemble conventional civilian DJI multirotor models according to regional press; and while the researchers behind the programme say early problems with flight efficiency have been overcome at a reasonable price level (after wind tunnel testing), air defence systems have still time to adapt before China can translate its claimed breakthrough into mass production.

Moreover, little has been released about the drone model’s offensive capabilities, beyond a claim one part of a swarm could be used to launch a strike while the remainder of the swarm performed other tasks. As a result, this early prototype is unlikely to deliver a significant payload in terms of missiles or other traditional kinetic threats. It will, however, pose a threat on the battlefield in the form of reconnaissance or cyber and electronic warfare.

Alternatively, one of the miniature drone components of the larger drone model could be adapted for use as a suicide weapon in place of a traditional missile system. Whatever the truth about the air separation drone swarm’s capabilities at present, as the countries with the biggest military resources, China and the US will remain the key drivers of both drone and drone defence development in this area beyond 2024.

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