AUTONOMOUS DRONES -- WILL A HUMAN ALWAYS PULL THE TRIGGER?

For a significant period into the future, the decision to pull the trigger or launch a missile from an unmanned system will not be fully automated, but it will remain under the full control of a human operator. Many aspects of the firing sequence will be fully automated but the decision to fire will not likely be fully automated until legal, rules of engagement, and safety concerns have all been thoroughly examined and resolved.





GROUND DRONES AND CROWD CONTROL



On the ground, UGVs are projected to conduct missions such as non-lethal through lethal crowd control, dismounted offensive operations, and armed reconnaissance and assault operations.

This is another sentence that caught my eye: Is the operator of a ground drone more or less likely to use excessive force than a riot policeman? We're probably going to find out.



THE WORST JOBS GO TO DRONES





SHARING DRONE TECHNOLOGY WITH OTHER NATIONS



Although it is highly unlikely unmanned systems would be designed and developed exclusively for building partnerships, many of the systems discussed above can support Combatant Commanders in their endeavors to build relationships with partner nations .... Those systems that conduct reconnaissance and surveillance can be employed on behalf of partner nations to assist with drug interdiction and insurgent activity.

And another:

Pursue the possibility of inserting promising, reasonably mature unmanned systems technologies into partner nations exercises for initial operational assessments.

The Department of Defense plans on it. Says one passage:And another:

"As the future enables greater automation with respect to both navigation and manipulation, unmanned systems will be able to perform tasks such as fire fighting, decontamination, forward operating base security, installation security, obstacle construction and breaching, vehicle and personnel search and inspection, mine clearance and neutralization, more sophisticated explosive ordnance disposal, casualty extraction and evacuation, and maritime interdiction," the report states. DRONE SHORTCOMINGS, CIRCA 2009



The ability to positively identify and precisely locate military targets in real-time is a current shortfall with DoD UAS. Reducing latency and increasing precision for GPS-guided weapons is required.



Throughout its 25-year plan on drones, the Department of Defense writes as if making our fleet ever more autonomous is both a major goal and an inevitability. One stated goal is to "support research and development activities to increase the level of automation in unmanned systems."States another portion, "First and foremost, the level of autonomy should continue to progress from today's fairly high level of human control/intervention to a high level of autonomous tactical behavior that enables more timely and informed human oversight." This isn't as alarming when you realize that some drones will be completing tasks like clearing mines or getting supplies to wounded soldiers. Wouldn't it be great if those drones were ever more autonomous?But this passage gave me chills:Evidently meant to be reassuring, my takeaway was: Forget the timeline -- the Pentagon thinks bots will one day kill autonomously; that the law and safety issuesresolve; that killer drones are in our future.When drone pilots complain about "latency," they're referring to the short delay between when events happen on the ground and when the relevant images are beamed via satellite to the drone operator.Said the planning document:In other words, a few years ago, drones weren't satisfactorily able to "positively identify and precisely locate military targets." Are they now?You can read all 210 pages of the Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY 2009 - 2034 here