SoSITE aims to develop and demonstrate concepts for maintaining air superiority through novel SoS architectures—combinations of aircraft, weapons, sensors and mission systems—that distribute air warfare capabilities across a large number of interoperable manned and unmanned platforms. The vision is to integrate new technologies and airborne systems with existing systems faster and at lower cost than near-peer adversaries can counter them.

SoSITE focuses on developing concepts and architectures for distributed air warfare, as well as the technical integration tools to make that possible. The program plans to harness existing airborne systems’ capabilities and reduce the cost and development timeline for new systems by using an open-systems architecture approach. Open-systems architectures create common standards and tools for developing interchangeable modules and platforms that can be quickly upgraded and swapped out as needed. This concept enables distribution of key functions, such as electronic warfare; sensors; weapons; battle management; positioning, navigation and timing; and data/communication links, across a variety of manned and unmanned platforms.

In a chilling prediction of this kind of controllable drone army technology, writer Daniel Suarez conjures a vision of a level 40 darknet sorcerer threatened with capture:

Gragg concentrated on the plane of D-Space. The entire floor plan was replicated there, spread out around him a life-sized wire-frame model overlaid on the GPS grid...

Gragg looked far beyond the concrete walls of Building Twenty-Nine, to distant, glowing call-outs in D-Space. He selected dozens of virtual objects he'd stored there, then launchd his prearranged summoning sequence, making somatic gestures and speaking the unlock code to the VOIP module...

"This is your last warning: surrender..."

Loki shook his head. "You're not thinking in enough dimensions, Doctor. Only part of me is in this building..."

Squads of heavily armed Korr guards ran to take up positions next to a guard shack ringed with highway barriers and razor wire at the perimeter gate...

The roar of speeding engines suddenly came in on the wind...

They both turned to see one, then six, then fifteen, then thirty cars screaming in from several vectors... The cars swerved with remarkable coordination, all converging on Building Twenty-Nine like a school of piranha...

Ross examined the screens. "Computer-controlled vehicles. Dozens of them. The Factions call them AutoM8s."

On-screen the intruder was busy moving his arms - manipulating invisible objects...

[Loki] drew another glowing red box across D-Space to encompass the entire facility. With a click of his pinky he brought up a pop-up menu, then selected Kill Everyone.
(Read more about Daniel Suarez' controllable drone army)