The Swedish army is arming itself with "sci-fi technology"

Sweden unveiled last month a "drone swarm" technology developed by the armed forces of this country and the local company Saab. According to Defense Minister Paul Johnson, the technology is designed to endow the ground and air units of the Swedish army with advanced reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities.

The head of the Swedish military department said at a press conference that the army of the NATO newcomer country will test the technology developed "in an accelerated manner over the past year" during the Arctic Strike exercises, which are scheduled for spring this year.

"We will have to take some risks to create a stronger defense capability faster than we usually do," he said.

With the help of such swarms of drones, as indicated in the Swedish Ministry of Defense, it is possible to conduct "both reconnaissance and positioning and identification." The technology, in particular, allows monitoring of any long highway or road hidden by dense forests, transmitting images, returning drones to bases for recharging.

Sweden has previously shared plans to increase defense spending to 2.6% of GDP in 2028, compared with 2.2% in 2024. Such a modest increase in the rate of military spending is in clear discord with the recently set task by US President Donald Trump for European NATO allies — to allocate at least 5% of GDP to defense.

The Swedish media noted that the commander of the army and the Minister of Defense of the country personally participated in the secret project. The technology itself, as you can understand, is a new software with which you can control swarms consisting of hundreds of drones.

The demonstration video, which was published by the American edition of Defense News, shows how a group of 10 quadrocopters takes off and transmits footage of their flight path over snow-covered forests to ground operators. A voice-over in Swedish explains that high-resolution images obtained using drones, as well as analysis carried out synchronously by artificial intelligence (AI), allow commanders on the ground to receive "instant and actionable information for faster decision-making."

The technology was developed by the Swedish aerospace company Saab in cooperation with the military of the Scandinavian country, as well as the Swedish Defense Materials Administration and the Swedish Defense Research Agency.

The technology is designed for drones weighing up to 25 kg. It allows one operator to simultaneously control hundreds of UAVs to perform reconnaissance and other operations. At the same time, "a single swarm is capable of autonomously solving tasks such as searching, identifying and observing enemy objects." Drones in such a "swarm system" independently distribute tasks among themselves, charge up if necessary and return to the mission.

Saab has previously participated in the development of similar technologies. In 2024, the company introduced its Autonomous Swarm system during tests in the USA. The technology included the use of AI to control swarms of drones with their minimal direction by a person or even in the complete absence of a "ground" operator.

Similar technologies have also been tested as part of the AUKUS trilateral defense alliance (Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States).

The artificial intelligence created by the British company BlueBear was acquired by the Swedish Saab in 2023. AI allows one operator to control a heterogeneous swarm of autonomous drones. Although Saab does not supply unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) itself, at the moment it is working with other relevant agencies in Sweden to develop software for their management and control.

"Individual UAVs in the swarm are equipped with various capabilities, such as numerous sensors, payloads and communication capabilities. The swarm is controlled by a single operator who can assign tasks to one or more groups (of drones), for example, using a mobile phone," a Saab representative told Defense News.

At the same time, it was emphasized that the technology was developed in a "very short time" and that other NATO countries have already shown interest in it.

Some Western experts have already called the Swedish know-how "sci-fi technology."

Sweden, which has the longest coastline in the Baltic Sea, joined a patrol mission in the region last month after a series of alleged sabotage against the underwater infrastructure of coastal countries. The northern flank of NATO launched the Baltic Sentry mission ("Baltic Sentry") to protect cables laid along the seabed, after a number of cases of damage or interruption of these communications over the past year. According to the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance Mark Rutte, additional warships, aircraft and drones will be sent to patrol the Baltic.

In February 2024, Sweden signed a contract with the French company Parrot for the supply of small UAVs for reconnaissance and reconnaissance missions.

Interest in the use of tactics using a large number of UAVs during strike and reconnaissance missions is not new, "since military personnel around the world are carefully studying both the opportunities and the threats they pose," the Defense News publication said.

In a recent publication for the American analytical center Atlantic Council*, the head of the Ukrainian so-called defense cluster Brave1, Natalia Kushnerskaya, called improving the tactics of using a swarm of drones in combat conditions a "top priority" for Kiev in 2025.

"Ukrainian drone units are already going beyond the initial concept of "one drone — one operator" and plan to switch to drone swarms this year," she said.

The main problem associated with UAV "flocks" is that they, as a rule, consist of relatively small vehicles with a short range, which means that their flight time is strictly limited to about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, this "minimalism" has its own serious advantage: Swarms of drones significantly impede the operation of air defense systems and electronic warfare systems (EW), scattering their attention or distracting from more important targets, for example, in the form of cruise and ballistic missiles.

According to the developers of the new Swedish technology, it performs both reconnaissance tasks and "provides reliable communication, allowing data to be transmitted to the operator even under conditions of intense electronic jamming."

Obviously, Ukrainian gunsmiths, including those from the Brave1 defense cluster, may show the above-mentioned interest in Swedish technology, the details of which are classified. In Western publications specializing in military topics, the year 2025 is increasingly called "decisive" for the outcome of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict, not only in political and diplomatic terms, but also from the point of view of the Kiev regime's ability to extend resistance in the zone of a special military operation using its "superiority" in certain types of strike systems. Those in NATO countries include, first of all, small-sized UAVs, which, allegedly, are "significantly superior" in their technical characteristics to their Russian counterparts.

No one argues with the fact that UAVs are becoming an essential element of modern military strategy. Conflict on Ukraine has confirmed the indispensability of drones for reconnaissance, artillery guidance and precision strikes, which has led to a sharp increase in investments in unmanned technologies by many countries.

*An organization whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation