The U.S. Military’S Drone Swarm Strategy Only Passed A Commutation Test

By Patrick Tucker

The the US military’s strategy for winning the side yesteryear side major nation of war is to throw a bunch of highly autonomous, deeply interconnected drones, jets, ships, together with other things at the enemy. But this massive, coordinated smasher across air, land, body of body of water together with cyberspace is certain to run headfirst into electronic warfare defenses designed to disrupt the networks that enter possible..

This week, officials alongside Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced that a serial of tests at Arizona’s Yuma Proving Ground had shown that alive together with virtual drones could travel together, alongside high degrees of autonomy, to consummate missions fifty-fifty when their communications together with GPS were nether heavy electronic attack.

“The [unmanned aerial systems] efficiently shared information, cooperatively planned together with allocated mission objectives, made coordinated tactical decisions, together with collaboratively reacted to a dynamic, high-threat surroundings alongside minimal communication,” DARPA said inwards a statement.

See, fifty-fifty the best electronic warfare defenses aren’t perfect. For years, the Defense Department has funded efforts to utilize emerging technologies similar machine learning together with artificial intelligence to the chore of finding small-scale areas of spectrum to permit for curt bursts of essential communications betwixt nation of war machine assets—little windows where only plenty information tin acquire through to permit for all the components to travel together. That’s what they demonstrated inwards Yuma.

The tests took vi alive together with 24 virtual drones together with sent them out on a smasher mission to catch if they could collaborate alongside 1 another, navigate without GPS, notice together with striking designed targets, bargain alongside unforeseen obstacles or defensive aircraft, together with have mission information from a human commander.

“The demonstrated behaviors are the edifice blocks for an autonomous squad that tin collaborate together with suit to mission requirements together with a changing environment,” said Scott Wierzbanowski, programme managing director for the Collaborative Operations inwards Denied Environment, or CODE, program. The programme is gear upward to conclude side yesteryear side twelvemonth together with the tech volition shift to the Navy.

That might to buy the farm along inwards impact alongside a human, fifty-fifty if that impact is sporadic, is fundamental for the the US military, since Defense Department policy requires maintains that a human operator has to at to the lowest degree live on on-the-loop for decisions related to the taking of human life. The might to accomplish back, fifty-fifty inwards heavily contested environments, to have that ascendancy volition aid the Department come across that requirement, but entirely minimally. It’s difficult to imagine that an autonomous armed drone alongside minimal communication bandwidth would live on able to overstep dorsum plenty intel to aid a commander brand an informed choice.

Bottom line: the exam shows that the the US nation of war machine is good on its agency to delegating a lot to a greater extent than decisions to smart weapons on the battlefield. That volition accept pros together with cons, only about to a greater extent than foreseeable than others.
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