TAIWAN-TECHNOLOGY-DEFENCE
Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Council supports a team from National Cheng Kung University in developing an artificial intelligence-based drone swarm system, aiming to improve maritime monitoring and search and rescue efficiency. The research team has completed a synchronous flight simulation of 20 drones, and will subsequently conduct hardware testing and actual flight verification. The image illustrates the drone technology.

【Taipei, Oct. 26】 The Ocean Affairs Council has allocated resources to support a National Cheng Kung University team developing an artificial intelligence-powered drone swarm system designed to enable different types of unmanned aircraft to fly cooperatively and divide tasks, improving the efficiency of maritime monitoring and search-and-rescue operations.

According to an Oct. 26 report by Focus Taiwan, the project is led by Chih-Che Chueh, an associate professor in NCKU’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. It combines artificial intelligence, flight dynamics and swarm cooperative-control technologies to develop a system that allows vertical-takeoff-and-landing fixed-wing drones to operate together.

The Ocean Affairs Council said the team has completed simulations of two groups comprising a total of 20 drones flying simultaneously. To reduce the risk of collisions during coordinated flight, the system uses three-dimensional distance calculations and control algorithms to maintain a vertical separation of at least 100 feet, or about 30 meters.

In the next phase, the research team will conduct hardware-in-the-loop testing, integrate the prototype system and carry out actual flight trials to assess its reliability under different sea conditions and operating environments.

The project covers three drone platforms: the JUMP 20, V-BAT and Flexrotor. Researchers will build three-dimensional models for each aircraft, conduct aerodynamic analyses and develop six-degree-of-freedom flight simulations as the technical foundation for autonomous navigation and coordinated mission execution.

Compared with using a single drone for patrol missions, a swarm system could enable multiple aircraft to monitor separate areas while adjusting flight paths and task assignments according to operational needs. The technology could be used not only for maritime monitoring, but also for maritime search and rescue, disaster assessment and other situations requiring continuous, wide-area observation.

However, the system remains in the research and testing stage. The timing of any deployment, procurement scale and operational capabilities will depend on the results of subsequent tests and government decisions.

As drones move from single-aircraft operations toward coordinated multi-aircraft missions, artificial intelligence control, communications stability, flight safety and system interoperability will be key to determining whether the technology can be deployed in actual maritime operations.