  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) OFFensive Swarm-Enabled
Tactics program's goal of launching 250 unmanned aerial and ground vehicles
from a limited sized launch zone was a daunting challenge. The swarm's aerial
vehicles were primarily multirotor platforms, which can efficiently be launched
en masse. Each field exercise expected the deployment of an even larger swarm.
While the launch zone's spatial area increased with each field exercise, the
relative space for each vehicle was not necessarily increased, considering the
increasing size of the swarm and the vehicles' associated GPS error; however,
safe mission deployment and execution were expected. At the same time,
achieving the mission goals required maximizing efficiency of the swarm's
performance by reducing congestion that blocked vehicles from completing tactic
assignments. Congestion analysis conducted before the final field exercise
focused on adjusting various constraints to optimize the swarm's deployment
without reducing safety. During the field exercise, data was collected that
permitted analyzing the number and durations of individual vehicle blockages'
impact on the resulting congestion. After the field exercise, additional
analyses used the mission plan to validate the use of simulation for analyzing
congestion.

Robotics