Defence departments around the world are racing to develop advanced autonomous and artificial intelligence technology for land, air and sea in a bid to outpace rival governments. PE takes a look at some of the most recent examples of autonomous defence technology being developed and trialled globally.
Swarm in the skies
America’s Department of Defense (DoD) is known to be developing a range of autonomous technologies for potential use out in the field. In fact, the Pentagon, the headquarters of the DoD, recently announced its latest $18 billion budget is to be spent over three years on technologies that included those needed for autonomous weapons. This will cover autonomous "deep learning" machines and systems, human-machine collaboration, assisted-human operations, advanced human-machine teaming and semiautonomous weapons.
One of its latest forays into this arena is the Perdix project, which seeks to utilise swarms of “micro-unmanned aerial vehicles created inexpensively on 3D printers”.
The Pentagon said the micro-UAVs will contain “commercial components”, and be launched to swarm from an F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft from a standard flare-dispenser-sized cartridge.
It is thought they will be used for a wide range of strategic missions, from surveillance to attacks.
The micro-unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are built in a slightly more ruggedised way than off-the-shelf versions, says the director of the DoD’s strategic capabilities office Will Roper.
“It's not big, it's not heated, so it’s going to have to live at -40 degrees on the aircraft and there's no power. So for us the wide world of micro-UAVs necks down to a small box that comes out of an F-16 at Mach 0.9,” he says.
Perdix will allow high-value aircraft like the F-16 to carry out missions in “threatened environments” Roper explains, adding, “we're trying to provide the basic truck to allow our Air Force partners to take the next step with various payloads.”
AI algorithms are used to prevent the drones to carry out collision avoidance. The largest swarm tested so far was with 20 of the Perdix micro-UAVs at a 2015 exercise in Alaska.
Autonomous ground vehicles
Governments and private companies are also looking into autonomous tank technology. Russia recently unveiled its efforts into unmanned combat ground vehicles (UCGVs) with Vikhr at the Moscow Army 2016 military technical forum in September. It is also expected to put its Uran-9 combat multi-purpose robotic system – an unmanned, small armoured tank - into service by the end of 2016.
Rosoboronexport, the sole state intermediary agency for Russia's exports/imports of defence-related products, technologies and services says that the Uran-9 is designed to provide remote reconnaissance and fire support to combined arms, recon and counter-terror units. It consists of two recon and fire support robots, a tractor for their transportation and a mobile control post.
The armament of the recon and fire support robots includes a 30mm 2A72 automatic cannon, a coaxial 7.62mm machine gun and anti-tank guided missiles.
The robots are fitted with a laser warning system and target detection, identification and tracking equipment.
Roboronexport says that the Uran-9 will be “particularly useful during local military and counter-terror operations, including those in cities” and will “significantly reduce personnel casualties”.
Boris Simakin who heads the analysis and long-term planning department at Rosoboronexport, says that Russian developers plan on entering the modern military robotics international market that is growing in demand. He adds: “This is a fast-growing segment of the arms market, so Rosoboronexport will develop and implement a long-term marketing strategy for promoting such pieces of hardware, including as part of integrated security projects.”
Patrolling the seas
Meanwhile, the UK’s Royal Navy has launched what it says is the world’s first large scale demonstration of marine robotic systems. The ‘Unmanned Warrior 16’ demonstration project includes more than 40 industry partners, academia and defence partners, including the US Navy, to experiment and demonstrate various maritime autonomous systems within the Joint Warrior operational environment.
Held off the coast of west Scotland and west Wales, more than 50 aerial, surface and underwater maritime autonomous systems (MAS) are taking part in a range of demonstrations on the themes of surveillances, intelligence-gathering and mine countermeasures. The Royal Navy explains that the project is providing collaborators with a complex environment in which UK, NATO and allied units can go through training together in tactics and skills for use in a combined joint task force. The exercise will run through a range of scenarios, including crisis and conflict situations, that could be realistically encountered in operations, such as disputed territory, terrorist activity, piracy and more.
One technology being deployed during the project is AutoNaut’s unmanned surface vessel (USV), which uses the motion from the ocean to propel itself forward. The patented wave foil technology fitted to AutoNaut enables offshore deployments for multiple months harvesting data from the ocean.
As AutoNaut does not have an engine it is silent, so it is able to deploy passive acoustic monitoring hydrophone arrays, providing a covert acoustic intelligence capability.
All the energy generated by solar panels on the deck is delivered to on-board payloads, says AutoNaut, so a number of sensors can be persistently deployed offshore reducing cost and risk relative to an equivalent manned vessel.
Dan Alldis, AutoNaut design manager says: “This is great opportunity to demonstrate the AutoNaut in a defence environment. We will deploy the AutoNaut into the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) theme of Unmanned Warrior, where we will ‘hunt’ a number of underwater targets in realistic scenarios. We will also provide a wide range of near real time sensor data to the Royal Navy including: radar signal measurement, day and low light 360° cameras and a multi-parameter metocean sensor package.”
Moral implications
As governments and companies around the globe push forward to develop ever more intelligent and automated war surveillance and defence technologies there is a debate over how much control we should give over to the devices. Would we ever trust machines to make tactical decisions to attack enemy forces or should there always be an element of human control?
Ethical concerns over the use of such technologies, including drones and autonomous weapons, has been discussed at the United Nation’s continued debate on conventional weapons in October 2016. Speakers urged member states to urgently address challenges these technologies raise around global security and how they are already being used globally.
While undoubtedly these ethical debates will rage on, it appears that little will stop the efforts around the world to develop ever more advanced autonomous defence technologies.