Recent
truly impressive improvements in the performance of commercial drones (a form
of robot), task-specific artificial intelligence, and 3D printing require all
national militaries take a hard look at how robotics are changing the modern
battlefield. The growing use of sophisticated surveillance and strike remotely
piloted aircraft represents only a tiny fraction of the impact these systems
will have. Advanced robotics guided by task-specific AI and produced in massive
numbers by advanced manufacturing—particularly 3D printing – will change how we
fight in air, sea, and land domains as well as how we protect our civil
societies.
In
the short term, aerial drones present the greatest threat and opportunity for
both state and non-state actors. Commercial and hobbyist demand has resulted in
increasingly capable drones ranging from small hobbyist quad-rotors like DJI’s
Phantom series to long-duration and long-range surveillance requirements for
fishery and forest regulation like Aerovel’s Flexrotor (2000 miles range /40
hours endurance) and Defiant Lab’s DX-3 (900 miles/25 hours).[1],[2] Many of these commercial
products boast GPS waypoint navigation and multi-spectral sensors. Soon they
will have inertial and imagery navigation as well as effective target
identification systems.
While
current commercial drones carry small payloads that limitation can be overcome via three distinct approaches. The
first and least technically challenging approach is to think in terms of
“bringing the detonator.” The second, employing explosively formed
penetrators (EFPs), requires a bit of technical expertise but most of it can be
learned on line.[3]
The third is to use swarms of cheap drones and count on cumulative damage to
accomplish the mission.
Drones’ Commercial Threats:
1-
“Bringing the detonator,” uses the drone to
deliver a small initiating charge to the much larger supply of explosive
material provided by the target. Even a few ounces of explosives delivered to
the right point on the target can initiate a much larger blast. The 2013
explosion at a Texas fertilizer storage facility, which destroyed five hundred
homes and killed fifteen people demonstrates the potential of this approach. However,
the highest political and economic impact could be generated by attacking
multiple passenger aircraft parked at terminal gates.
2-
EFP warheads, allows light drones to penetrate
heavier targets such as a tanker truck or railroad tank car. With as little as
32 grams of explosives, a thumb-sized EFP can penetrate up to 1 ¼ centimeters
of steel.[4]
Increasing the size of the EFP to only a few pounds allows it to destroy even
well-armored vehicles. In Iraq coalition forces found EFPs in a wide variety of
sizes—some powerful enough to destroy an Abrams tank. Others were small enough
to fit in the hand—or on a small drone.[5]
3-
Using swarms is enabled by task-specific
artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D printing. Task specific AI can employ
existing GPS systems to navigate to the designated target area and then achieve
precision by using cell phone technology to identify and attack a specific
target. As a result, there is no requirement for a pilot to guide any of the
drones.
Aerial Drones
3D Printing or additive manufacturing provides
the means to produce tens, and soon hundreds, of thousands of drones. Three
years ago, a team at the University of Virginia printed a drone in a single
day, then added a small electric motor, two batteries, and an Android phone for
guidance to produce an $800 autonomous drone with a range of twenty kilometers.[6]
Today Carbon 3D sells a printer that can print 100 times faster than the
University’s.[7] A
small factory with only a hundred such printers could make 10,000 drones a day.
A 3D printing plant expanded to the 1,000 printers planned by UPS could print
100,000 drones a day.[8] The
limitation is no longer the printing but the assembly and shipment of products.
Both processes can be automated with robots. In the near future, drones could
be produced at a rate exceeding many types of ammunition – and often at less
cost per round.
Today the U.S. Armed Forces are actively
exploring the use of smart, coordinating swarms in the air and at sea.[9],
[10]
While these programs are still developmental and thus use a limited number of
drones, recent dramatic cost reductions in each of the needed technologies will
increase the number by an order of magnitude. Once 3D Printing matures, states
will be able to employ them in the thousands. The Chinese already have
launchers mounted on medium trucks that contain eighteen Harpy long-range
drones. The LOCUST program shows launchers can be configured into twenty-foot
commercial cargo containers.[11]
Depending on the type of drone, a twenty-foot container could hold anywhere
from twenty to several hundred. The use of these containers means every
commercial truck that can carry a container becomes a potential weapons system.
Every sea going vessel to include fishing boats becomes a potential weapons
platform.
Swarms
of attack drones guided by limited AI will provide relatively inexpensive but
effective anti-access and area denial weapons. The Polish Army is already
fielding 1000 dronese per year with a range of thirty kilometers armed with carry
anti-tank, high explosive, high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) or thermobaric
warheads.[12]
Ground Drones
Both state and non-state actors have already
built and are employing remotely operated land robots – and using them for
basic patrols. In 2008, the U.S. Army purchased twenty four robot sentries but
did not arm them.[13]
In 2014, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces deployed mobile robots to guard
five of its ballistic missile installations. The Russians armed them and gave
them limited autonomy. Dmitry Andreyev stated, “These robots can detect and
destroy targets, without human involvement.” The robot sentry has multiple
sensors and a 12.7-millimetre heavy machine gun.[14] In 2014, the South Koreans
put autonomous robots on patrol along the DMZ – but they cannot fire without a
human’s permission.[15]
As always, active warfare has stimulated
creativity among the combatants. In Iraq, Shia militiamen have deployed
remotely operated robots in the chaos of actual ground combat. Members of the
Hashd al Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Units) in Iraq are using four homemade
bots to fight ISIS. All four use cameras so the remote operator can see and
aim. They are armed with a variety of weapons from rifles to medium machines
guns to rocket propelled grenades.[16]
The Russians have gone a step further and plan
to deploy their Uran-9 remotely operated mini-tank to Syria. “The Uran-9 is an
unmanned armoured reconnaissance vehicle equipped with an automatic cannon, a
machinegun, guided missiles and a wide array of surveillance sensors. The
vehicle can automatically identify, detect and track enemy targets based on a
pre-programmed path set by its operator.”[17]
Maritime
The maritime domain has not been neglected. Remote-controlled,
inexpensive sea gliders have very long endurance (years), and require no crew
or support ship (except while they’re being deployed or recovered).[18]
Michigan Tech has already produced a prototype of a $10,000 version.[19]
These systems clearly have the potential to be configured as self-deploying, relatively
inexpensive, smart sea mines that could be launched hundreds of miles from the
target area. Navies are also experimenting with vessels ranging from drones
that can be launched from submarines to full size, long-endurance surface
vessels.
Logistics
To support units in exposed locations, the
U.S. Marine Corps used the K-MAX cargo-hauling heli-drone in Afghanistan.[20]
Today, it is experimenting with expendable, wooden gliders that can be dropped
from cargo aircraft or helicopters and glide 130 kilometers to precisely
deliver a 450 kilogram payload.[21]
European truck manufacturers have successfully tested truck “platoons” where a
single driver operates the lead truck and up to eleven others driverless truck
follow closely.[22]
Several shipping companies are testing unmanned commercial ships ranging from
simple ferries to large container ships.[23]
In short, many logistics missions – particularly high risk ones – will be done
by drones.
Strike
The Pentagon is seeking low-cost, high
performance unmanned aircraft to accompany manned aircraft into combat. Kratos
Defense and Security Systems Inc. has designed the XQ-222 and aims to sell it
for about two million dollars a copy. The aircraft features high sub-sonic
speed and a 2,500 kilometer combat radius (2 ½ times the F-35) with a five
hundred pound payload. It can also be sent on a 5,000 kilometer one way
mission. It has low-observable features as well as no requirement for an
airfield to launch or recover. It takes off with a rocket assist from a stand
and lands using a parachute.[24]
But strike is not limited to million dollar systems. The U.S. Army and Marine
Corps have been using the $15,000 Switchblade drone as an observation and
strike platform in Afghanistan since 2011. ISIS has been using much cheaper
models for several years. In early 2017, Iraqi forces reported ISIS’ first use
of drones to deliver bombs against Iraqi forces.[25] In one video, the drone is
used to support a complex ambush. It distracted the local Iraqi forces while a
suicide car bomber closed in and detonated his vehicle.[26]
Looming Questions
The convergence of technologies mean the
arrival of thousands of drones with limited autonomy on the battlefield is
inevitable. That leads us to three key questions. The most basic is “How does a
modern society protect itself?” States have invested billions in protecting
their facilities against terrorist ground attacks but drones render most of
these defenses obsolete. Defenders must not only protect fixed sites but also some
types of mobile assets and must do so while not drastically interfering with
the civilian communities. Even today governments are struggling to defeat drones.
Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense has sponsored the annual Black Dart
exercise to find ways to defeat drones. Anti-drone technology has taken a
number of different paths:
--various kinetic
kill technologies have been used to track, identify, and then destroy the
target drone.
--lasers
have been used successfully to engage drones and, with continued investment,
show great promise but are ineffective under some environmental conditions.
--electromagnetic
pulse has been used to burn out a drone’s electronics.
--software
attacks have seized control of drone operating systems.
--electronic
jamming has blocked the command signal from the pilot to the drone.
--GPS jamming has misdirected autonomous drones.
In 2015
and 2016, the Russians used electronic jamming to defeat Ukrainian drones to
include U.S. provided RQ-11B Raven drones. Ukrainians now assemble their own
drones for only $20,000 to $25,000 apiece, often funded from private donations.
Because they are newer, they are more jam-resistant than the more pricey
Ravens.[27]
This is yet another case of civilian technology being ahead of corresponding
military technology. The speed of development is being driven by commercial
need. Each of the underlying
technologies appears to have passed the knee of the innovation curve and thus
capabilities will expand exponentially. The autonomous drone competition is
just beginning.
The
presence of thousands of drones on the battlefield leads to two other immediate
questions. The first question is “Does the tactical defense become dominant in
the short term?” Between 1863 (U.S.
Civil War) and 1917 (World War I), the advent of rifled muskets, rapid fire
artillery, and then machine guns allowed the defense to defeat most attacks through
the sheer volume of accurate fire. Anything moving above ground with several
kilometers of the enemy could quickly be killed. Masses of drones may create similar
conditions where anything or person moving above ground within fifty kilometers
of an enemy force will be seen and killed. Like the era of trench warfare, the
defender will have the protection of a prepared position and, because he will
not reveal himself until he fires, will generate less signature for targeting
by enemy drones.
The
rapidly expanding family of relatively inexpensive but long-range drones leads
to the next question. Can swarms of cheap, long-range drones neutralize
short-range fighter-bombers? Unrefueled, the F-35 has a combat radius of
between 900 and 1100 kilometers depending on the version. A variety of vertical
takeoff and landing autonomous drones already have ranges from 1500 to 5000
kilometers. While unrefueled drone ranges continue to increase rapidly, the F-35
and similar fighters would require major redesign to achieve similar ranges.
Currently, they require large scale aerial tanker support to gain any additional
range. Large numbers of relatively cheap drones will be able to reach the fixed
fighter bases while fighter bombers will be hard pressed to reach any of the
almost infinite number of launch sites VTOL drones will use. Long-range drones
will not hunt advanced fighters in the air but on the ground at their operating
bases.
Conclusion
This
brief article barely touched the extensive range and incredible speed of
advances in drone technology and employment. It is imperative nations explore
how such systems may be employed and how they can be defeated. Directed energy
– laser and electromagnetic pulse – weapons show great promise but have
distinct limitations. Other creative approaches include the use of drones to intercept
drones. It is likely to require a robust mix of tactics and technologies to
neutralize drones. Militaries must conduct rigorous experiments and wargames to
understand the impact the proliferation will have on the modern battlefield.
This will be particularly challenging precisely because the evolving family of
autonomous drones directly challenges the favored weapons systems of today –
manned aircraft, large warships, and heavy armor formations. It will take
intellectual honesty as well as significant civilian oversight to insure these
new systems are fairly evaluated and optimally employed.
------------------
*Dr.
T. X. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the US National Defense
University. The views expressed are
solely his own and do not reflect the views of the US government.
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