NSWC Crane hosts international participants in all-domain, electromagnetic warfare testing event

NSWC Crane hosts international participants in all-domain, electromagnetic warfare testing event

By Sarah K. Oh (ctr), NSWC Crane Corporate Communications

Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) led a two-week electromagnetic spectrum operations experimentation event called Silent Swarm 2024 from July 15-26. The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Integrated Sensing and Cyber (OUSD R&E IS&C) sponsored the third annual event, where teams participated in experimentation with 50 technologies at the National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) in Alpena, Michigan.

Silent Swarm began in 2022 with 17 participating technologies. By the 2023 event, that number doubled. Robert "Ice" Gamberg, the Project Lead for Silent Swarm at NSWC Crane, said the event has grown in several ways from previous events.

"This is the third year for Silent Swarm," said Gamberg. "Our event is larger and more complex this year. It's been an evolutionary change. We have matured our processes and we have a more diverse collection of technologies across multiple domains and participants from industry, government research labs, and academia this year."

In addition to the number of participants increasing, there was also more engagement from international partners. Australia and the United Kingdom participated throughout the Silent Swarm planning cycle. The Silent Swarm team welcomed participants from four partner nations during Silent Swarm execution.

The NADWC provided a unique testing environment for participants.

"The multi-domain component at NADWC adds a significant dynamic environment for live experimentation," said Sondra Laughlin, the Deputy Project Lead for Silent Swarm at NSWC Crane. "Unmanned underwater, surface, airborne, and ground vehicles together in one event…it's fascinating. Innovation and execution of that level of learning environment is central to the success of Silent Swarm."

Laughlin said Silent Swarm is organized in a way to create opportunities for future collaboration.

"We've put intention into how participants can network with each other at Silent Swarm," said Laughlin. "There's space and planned structure in the planning workshops to help them find complementary technology partnerships that can experiment together at Silent Swarm."

Gamberg said the structure of Silent Swarm allows for ideation.

"Silent Swarm execution highlighted the power of a collaborative environment focused on a central hypothesis to drive technical and tactical experimentation objectives," said Gamberg. "The event is intentionally structured to allow for innovative excursions and teaming. The results were stunning. The teams were iterating, trying new ideas and creating unique partnerships and platform, payload pairings in real time. One culminating event that was created during execution included a small uncrewed surface vessel (USV) employing an uncrewed air vehicle (UAV) and an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) with all three platforms delivering electromagnetic spectrum operations capabilities. Turning an innovative idea into prototype execution within a matter of days."

Gamberg said the partnerships make Silent Swarm a success year after year.

"The Silent Swarm team would like to thank the town of Alpena, MI for hosting our event again this year," said Gamberg. "The hospitality and tremendous support from the local community, from the Michigan National Guard and from our partners at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Thunder Bay National Maritime Sanctuary make all of this possible. We look forward to continuing this fantastic partnership in future events."

About NSWC Crane | NSWC Crane is a naval laboratory and a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) with mission areas in Expeditionary Warfare, Strategic Missions and Electromagnetic Warfare. The warfare center is responsible for multi-domain, multi- spectral, full life cycle support of technologies and systems enhancing capability to today's Warfighter.

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