Congress wants the US military to find a better way to fight against the use drones on the battlefield.

Specifically, lawmakers think the Department of Defense (DoD) needs to pay more attention to the threat posed by so-called swarms of cheap, commercially available drones, and develop technologies to counter them.

The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which governs DoD policy for the coming year, directs the Pentagon to conduct an investigation into how swarms of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) could be used by Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and non-state groups to endanger US military facilities.

While individual drones are typically remotely piloted by a human operator, swarms concepts feature dozens of small aircraft flown and controlled by artificial intelligence, with minimal input from a human overseer.

The 2023 NDAA passed by Congress on 15 December pays special attention to the threat of drone swarms, directing the Pentagon to conduct “analysis of the national security implications of swarming technologies such as autonomous intelligence and machine learning”.

If the bill is signed into law by President Biden, DoD leaders would also be required to develop technical systems to counter such swarms and incorporate such a capability into the department’s existing military strategy.

Although UAS manufactured specifically for military use have been an important force on the battlefield for the past two decades, consumer quadcopters and other…