In Syria, Drones with a New Mission

(Source: 3drobotics.com)  

This past March, Mark Jacobsen, a PhD candidate in Political Science at Stanford, spent a week in Turkey conducting field research among Syrian refugees and activists. At that time the sieges by the Syrian government were at their worst, and the refugees Mark spoke with told him tragic stories, venting their frustration with the U.S. for not airdropping food and other supplies to the besieged areas. Mark, an active-duty C-17 pilot in the U.S. Air Force, explained why the U.S. can’t do airdrops in Syria: Manned cargo planes are vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire, so you can’t conduct airdrops without also launching a major combat operation to take down those air defense systems.

Normally the discussion would end there. That night, though, moved and troubled by the stories he’d heard and the people he’d met, Mark couldn’t sleep. The more thought he gave the issue, the more absurd it seemed that in the 21st century we still don’t have a way to deliver critical humanitarian aid through contested airspace so it gets to those who need it most. Mark wouldn’t let the problem go, and a few months later he launched the Syria Airlift Project.

The whole premise of the Syria Airlift Project is that effective drones can be built cheaply and in large numbers. Made of a simple airframe built from Dollar Tree foam board, packing tape, and hot glue, each aircraft (all-in, with servos, motors, props, autopilot and batteries) costs less than $500. Mark chose to use 3D Robotics APM 2.6 autopilots because they’re inexpensive and widely available, and also because the open-source software can be customized for specific purposes. The SAP’s autopilot modifications include a self-destruct mechanism to prevent the technology from falling into the hands of hostile actors, as well as special navigation instructions in the event of GPS loss or jamming.

The SAP also needed a low-cost way to coordinate simultaneous flights of dozens or even hundreds of these drones, so they created Swarmify, a custom mission planning tool. Mark says that if you give Swarmify one original flight plan, the software can create any number of slightly different flight plans that are randomized by altitude, route and timing. This allows them to quickly create and upload nearly identical and simultaneous flight plans for a whole swarm of drones, while also ensuring safe and collision-free flight.

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