Golden Horde's third demo showcases expanded radio network to improve weapon connectivity

The Air Force’s Golden Horde program this week successfully completed flight tests of a modified, Boeing-built Small Diameter Bomb I, demonstrating all test objectives, including the expansion of the system's radio network to include six weapons in flight.

The flight test involved two F-16s from the 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, FL, which established communication and simultaneously released the six weapons -- four from one aircraft and two from the other, according to a May 26 press release from the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The radio network expansion demonstrates the ability of L3Harris' Banshee 2 to increase the number of nodes based on mission needs.

Another key objective of the flight test involved sending an in-flight target update from the ground to the weapons in flight, telling them to engage a new priority target.

"This demonstrates the ability of Golden Horde weapons to interface with the larger Joint All-Domain Command and Control network," the release states, noting that establishing such a link is a foundation for future Networked, Collaborative and Autonomous (NCA) weapons.

A third testing objective was to perform a synchronized time-on-target attack on a single location using two of the weapons. The program partnered with Georgia Tech Research Institute to use its algorithm for the targeting requirement, which didn't require a software change.

Golden Horde is an effort to demonstrate swarming munitions and is one of AFRL's three initial Vanguard programs. After a series of tests involving inventory weapons, the program is shifting to a new phase that will shape development of a "multi-tier digital weapon ecosystem" called Colosseum.

Colosseum -- a partnership among AFRL's Munitions Directorate, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's program executive office for weapons and the 96th Test Wing -- will be an integrated simulation environment that will use digital twins for rapid testing and fielding of collaborative networked technologies.