DARPA seeks autonomous containerized launch/recovery for 500-drone swarms

DARPA is soliciting concepts for an 'autonomous constellation' of up to ~500 Group 1-3 drones supported by fully autonomous containers that handle storage, launch, recovery, and recharge/refuel with minimal human involvement, including in GPS-denied environments. The novelty is the container acting as a self-sustaining mission-cycle hub enabling multi-day, high-availability swarm operations with onboard management software (path optimization/collision deconfliction). If realized, it would enable covert, rapidly deployable swarm basing on land/sea and potentially behind enemy lines.