The DLR research team aims to refine the swarm navigation system to support astronauts and robots in lunar exploration and aid terrestrial exploration of challenging terrains.
The swarm navigation system operates decentrally and requires no infrastructure, supporting multiple participants.
Emanuel Staudinger and his team tested the swarm navigation system on Mount Etna and in a lava cave on Lanzarote.
The LUNA facility has successfully tested swarm navigation in a realistic lunar environment.
The swarm navigation system developed at the DLR Institute for Communication and Navigation allows exploration of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars.
The mission was completed by the live Banshee and several digital Banshees within a live-virtual swarm, successfully acting in a coordinated manner.
The Banshee was equipped with QinetiQ’s Airborne Command and Control for Swarm Interoperable Missions (ACCSIOM) technology.
NanoMagSat follows ESA’s Swarm Earth Explorer mission, which was launched in 2013.
If the same ratio applied to a helicopter swarm of two-kilogram helicopters, the Falcon 9 could potentially carry about 500 helicopters to Mars.
A swarm of helicopters could gather data across tens of thousands of locations on the Martian surface over a period of years.
A carrier vehicle could launch a swarm of helicopters into the Mars vicinity.
The helicopter swarm would communicate directly with satellites in low Mars orbit.
NASA should study the feasibility of large-swarm small probe missions for Mars exploration.
Beyond Gravity delivered GNSS receiver flight models for the SWARM mission operated by ESA.
Macau Science Satellite 1A and 1B will provide complementary observations to ESA’s Swarm satellites and the Sino-Italian seismo-electromagnetic satellite Zhangheng-1.
Rajant Kinetic Mesh BreadCrumb radio nodes have been used in large drone swarm formations in DARPA’s OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program.
SpaceX is pursuing the small-satellite IoT opportunity via the seven-year-old U.S. venture Swarm, which SpaceX bought in 2021.
SpaceX acquired Swarm in 2021.
The Starling mission will complete a six-month series of experiments to demonstrate swarm communications, navigation, and autonomy.
The Swarm mission comprises three identical 468-kilogram satellites in near-polar orbit and has operated since 2013.