The Pentagon Wants AI-Driven Drone Swarms for Search and Rescue Ops

The Defense Department's central artificial intelligence development effort wants to build an artificial intelligence-powered drone swarm capable of independently identifying and tracking targets, and maybe even saving lives. The Pentagon's Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, or JAIC, issued a request for information to find out if AI developers and drone swarm builders can come together to support search and rescue missions. Search and rescue operations are covered under one of the four core JAIC research areas: humanitarian aid and disaster relief. The program also works on AI solutions for predictive maintenance, cyberspace operations and robotic process automation. The goal for the RFI is to discover whether industry can deliver a full-stack search and rescue drone swarm that can self-pilot, detect humans and other targets and stream data and video back to a central location.