Schools of Sleeper Drones Could Swim Future Seas

To that end, the Department of Defense wants to seed the oceans with robotic vehicles, leaving them on the seafloor until they're needed. In a time of crisis, a military commander would transmit a signal to the underwater vehicles, which would then float to the surface and either monitor the area, or launch a separate unmanned vehicle into the air to gather intelligence. At the end of the mission the vehicle could be picked up by a submarine or support ship. The system of robotic vehicles and their UAVs would be called Upward Falling Payload. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is asking private companies to come up with designs for the communications systems, the "risers" that will float the UAVs to the surface, the UAVs themselves and the equipment they would carry.