Drone wars 3D: an interactive simulator for drone swarms

Abstract

The utilization of drone swarms, characterized by their formidable destructive capabilities and broad range of potential applications, has led to the pressing need for effective countermeasures to mitigate their potential threats. Additionally, the relatively low cost of drones has further amplified the need for robust defense strategies. Although consumer-type drones can be neutralized by electronic countermeasures or microwave weapons, military-grade drones are produced to be protected against such attacks, leaving the physical destruction as the best choice. Within the scope of this study, a simulation environment was developed in the Unity3D game engine in order to measure the effectiveness of defense systems against drone swarms and to find effective defense tactics and swarm formations. Unless otherwise stated, swarms with the same default values were used in the tests. The actor types in the simulation were 1) drone, 2) drone swarm, 3) machine gun, 4) laser weapon, 5) anti-aircraft gun, 6) air defense missile launcher. In the tests of defensive drone swarms against offensive drone swarms, two enemy swarms (identical in everything but their formations) were created. Then attack drones destroyed were inspected by applying all possible formation combinations. Results show that, the drone swarms have an average success rate of over 90% in destroying enemy drone swarms. Though, in order to achieve this success rate, the defending swarm must be located on the attacking swarm's target approach path. Another noteworthy finding was that each formation was most effective in defending against the enemy swarm having the same formation of attacking party. A strategy to copycat the offensive swarm's shape when possible seems to be viable given the fact that identical swarms are more effective against each other. This finding was also supported by the results of drone spacing tests. When two swarms of the same number and formation were used against each other with different drone spacing, the most effective defense was obtained when the drone spacing of the two swarms were equal.