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To that end, costs must be kept low. The defence department plans to pay less than $800,000 a pop for Gremlins, though that would be for an order of 1,000 of them. So, if a couple were shot down in an operation, "that's okay, it really doesn't matter," says Mr Wierzbanowski. In military jargon, he describes the things as "attritable". Dynetics' working assumption is that each Gremlin will fly a maximum of about 20 missions. This means they can be made from less durable, and therefore cheaper materials and components.
為此必須保持低成本。美國國防部計劃為一架小精靈花費不超過80萬美元，不過那是訂購1000架的價格。所以，如果一次行動中有幾架小精靈被擊落，“沒關系，真的不要緊”，維爾茲巴諾夫斯基說。用軍事術語來說，他稱小精靈是“可消耗的”。Dynetics初步假設每架小精靈最多能執行大約20次飛行任務。這意味著它們的制造材料和部件可以不那么耐用，價格也就更低。
The aerial aircraft-carrier of choice for the Gremlin project is a modified C-130 cargo plane, which could carry up to four of the drones in bomb racks slung under its wings. That would make for a small squadron, but numbers could be bolstered by further drones dropped from accompanying fighters or bombers. Deploying the drones is therefore fairly easy. The tricky part is fishing them out of the air when they return from a mission. For this, Dynetics has designed a special recovery system that fits above a C-130's cargo ramp.
小精靈項目首選的空中航母是經改造的C-130運輸機，它機翼下方懸掛的炸彈架最多可以搭載四架無人機。這將形成一個小型中隊，但隨著同行的戰斗機或轟炸機投放更多的無人機，總體數量就會增加。因此無人機的投放還算容易。棘手的部分是當它們完成任務返回時把它們從空中打撈回來。為此，Dynetics設計了一種安裝在C-130運輸機貨艙門上方的特殊回收系統。
When a Gremlin flies back to the mothership, the cargo ramp opens and the recovery system lowers a boom out of it. This boom releases a pod on a ten-metre-long tether, and that pod clamps onto a short engagement arm which pops out of the top of the Gremlin itself. A successful capture shuts off the Gremlin's engine. A winch then hoists the drone on board. This arrangement should be able to pull eight Gremlins an hour out of the air.
當小精靈飛回母艦時，貨艙門打開，從回收系統里放下一根吊桿。吊桿釋放出一個用十米長的線纜連接的吊艙，吊艙抓住從小精靈頂部彈出的一個短的嚙合臂。捕獲成功后，小精靈的發動機就會關閉，再由絞盤將它拉上飛機。這種方式應該能在一小時內從空中拉回八架小精靈。
That, at least, is the idea. So far, though Gremlins have managed to come within centimetres of successful capture, such capture has not been achieved. But Dynetics hopes some software tweaks will deal with this by the summer, when operational testing of the Gremlins system by the air force is supposed to begin.
至少想法是這樣的。到目前為止，小精靈尚未被成功捕獲過——還差那么幾厘米。但Dynetics希望一些軟件上的改進可以在今年夏天之前解決這個問題，屆時美國空軍應該會啟動對小精靈系統的實操測試。
This testing will include flights with various sorts of payloads. But the most important thing to be tested will be how well Gremlins are able to co-operate—for instance, by swapping tasks as circumstances evolve. For this, the air force is developing software that emerged from a different DARPA programme, called Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment. It will not be able to orchestrate a fully autonomous "swarm", at least for now. The goal, rather, is to give individual drones enough autonomy for a single human operator to be able to oversee a cluster of them.
這次測試將包括攜帶各種有效載荷的飛行。但最重要的是測試小精靈們的協作能力，比如隨環境變化而交換任務。為此美國空軍正在開發一款軟件，它來自DARPA的另一個項目，名為“拒止環境中的協同作戰”。該軟件并不能組織一個完全自主的“機群”，至少目前不能。確切地說，它的目標是讓單架無人機具備足夠的自主行動力，這樣一名人類操作員就能夠監管一群無人機。
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