Britain invested $4.8 million for smarter missile systems — allowing munitions to communicate and react quickly to changing threats — the British Ministry of Defense said on Thursday.
The contract was awarded to the Defense Science Technology Laboratory for the Co-operative Strike Weapons Technology Demonstrator, which the British government is charging with improving current systems — specifically, missile responsiveness and reaction as situations emerge.
British officials said that the nation's current missile system enables missiles to communicate with the launch platform but not with each other.
"The aim of this program is to investigate how inter-missile communication and cooperative behaviors can be technically achieved to solve UK military challenges," according to DSTL scientists.
Work on the program began in April and is expected to last for two years, with officials expecting the integration of the network within five years.
In November 2020, Britain signed a $33 billion arms deal that would support 1,260 jobs, the government stated in a press release.
The U.S. completed the first phase of testing its Golden Horde technology — swarming smart weapons that behave semi-autonomously and use algorithms to seek high-priority targets — in June.
