The Autonomous, Reconfigurable Swarms of Unmanned Vehicles for Defense Applications (ACHILLES) is an EDA Cat.B project funded by the Greek and German Ministries of Defense. The project kick-off in January 2023 and has a duration of 31 months. It enables the maturation and validation of swarm technologies, as well as airspace integration concepts for use in the defence sector in EU. This will be supported by simulation testing and flight demonstrators developed for the project.
ACHILLES is funded by the Hellenic and German Ministries of Defence under the umbrella of the European Defence Agency (EDA).
Capabilities and features under investigation:
- Interoperability with external and preexisting military systems
- Distributed communications
- Decision-making and swarming capabilities
- Guidance, Navigation, and Control methods
- Perception capabilities/ Sensor processing/ ISR/ Situational Awareness capabilities
- Integration into national airspace
Consortium
The objectives of the ACHILLES project are:
- to pursue a step forward toward the introduction of unmanned swarms for defense applications by increasing the TRL of autonomous, reconfigurable swarms of unmanned vehicles for specific defense missions (i.e. persistent monitoring of theatre of operations). Activities of the ACHILLES project are expected to reach a TRL of 5.
- to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of an autonomous, reconfigurable swarm of UXVs for persistent monitoring in defense by introducing Highly Automated Dispensable Drone Systems for Reconnaissance and Protection (Hoch-Automatisierte Verlust-Drohnen für Aufklärung und Schutz (HAVDAS)). This HAVDAS-System shall interact as a hidden swarm concept composed of HAVDAS-unmanned vehicles that will be stationed within remote rest areas and commanded upon request to operation areas when transit is possible.
