An Overview of British Drone and Drone Development Programmes – II

Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP)

In June 2024, the RAF published its ‘Autonomous Collaborative Platform Strategy’ aiming to develop, produce and deploy these new type of AI-enabled military drones. The strategy defines Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) as types of uncrewed systems “which demonstrate autonomous behaviour and are able to operate in collaborative manner with other assets.”  Note these type of drones are described as ‘Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)’ by the US.

The idea is for one or more to fly alongside – or in the vicinity of – a piloted military aircraft with the drones carrying out specifically designated tasks such as surveillance, electronic warfare, guiding weapons onto targets, or carrying out air-to-air or air-to-ground strikes.  Rather than being directly controlled by individual on the ground, these drones will fly autonomously.

The strategy sets out three ‘Tiers’ of ACP based on their ability to survive in “high-risk” (i.e. defended) environments:

• Tier 1 are disposable drones, with life-cycle of one or very few missions;
• Tier 2 are “attritable” (or “risk tolerant”) that is, expected to survive but losses are acceptable;
• Tier 3 are drones which have high strategic value, which if lost would significantly affect how the RAF will fight.

In May 2025, the MoD announced that the first Tier 1 ACP, called StormShround, had been brought into service. Other ACP are being developed including LANNER/MALFY and an ACP to work in conjunction with Apache Attack Helicopters under Project NYX (see below for details).