Drone technology has played a major role in helping the U.S. military combat enemy forces for the past decade. Now, military leaders are rethinking how drone technology can be utilized to adapt to the ever changing battlefield as the United States and its allies find themselves in the midst of fourth-generation warfare. When most people think of drone technology used in warfare, they imagine a human using a remote to control all the decisions the drone makes in order to efficiently destroy the enemy; however, drone swarm technology is coming into play and will continue to change the dynamic battlefield that the United States and its allies currently find themselves in.
Drone swarm technology is enacted when drones are able to use shared information in order to make autonomous decisions. For example, when you see a cloud of bees flying together, it may look like they are flying together based off of of what the queen bee's instructions are. Each bee is actually making an independent decision based on the wind speed, altitude and its perception of its flight pattern. The bee autonomously makes the decision to go left, right, up or down based on its own specific changing situation. When that first bee makes the decision to go left, that changes the situation of the next bee and the process of reacting to a different situation is repeated for each bee that is a part of the cloud of bees.
The advantages provided when using drone swarm technology are a result of the drones being able to communicate to each other based on the changing situation each drone faces. For example, when looking for enemy submarines, the drones are able to cover a larger area due to the drone-to-drone communication capabilities. This drone-to-drone communication capability also would be useful when providing missile defense systems as drones could communicate a way of coming together to form a makeshift wall and collide with incoming missiles before they reach friendly territory.
United States Marine Corps Infantry units have already tested out small drone swarms to be utilized in offensive operations but there are still some concerns regarding drone swarm technology. As stated before, the ability for drones to communicate to each other and act autonomously is what makes drone swarm technology so advantageous; however, what happens when the enemy jams the signal frequency between the drones? The threat of hackers gaining control of the drone swarm and turning the swarm against friendly troops must also be accounted for as well. Other countries such as China have already started developing thousand drone swarms so the United States military leaders will have to decide how they will prepare to combat enemy drone swarm attacks; furthermore, the U.S. military will have to continue advancing their own drone swarm technology while factoring in security measure and threats in order to stay in the fight.
Questions:
1. Are there any other risks other than listed above that the U.S.should factor in when continuing to develop drone swarm technology to be utilized on the battlefield?
2. What are some ways the U.S. can prevent enemy hacking attacks against friendly drones?
3. How should the U.S. go about defending against an enemy drone swarm attack from a nation-state such as China or Russia?
Links:
THE ERA OF THE DRONE SWARM IS COMING, AND WE NEED TO BE READY FOR IT
https://warontherocks.com/2018/08/the-perfect-can-wait-good-solutions-to-the-drone-swarm-problem/
Pentagon Still Questioning How Smart to Make Its Drone Swarms
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47192232
I think there are many risk involved when using drone swarm tech. In the current war we are fighting the US has to use Electronic Counter Measures (ECMs) to jam enemy signals. The machines that I used back in 2012 were capable of jamming 4G signals from cell phones. So, would this play into the tech not working correctly? The ECMs are all over the battlefield and how would this tech work in the urban terrain we are facing now?
ReplyDeleteI think a good way would be to have a type of jammer installed on the drone itself. This would prevent any signal trying to enter it and allow the drone to operate on a separate signal so it would be effective.
I think the best way would be to have ECMs but at a stronger level. Having them mounted on our vehicles and on our foot patrols, as we do now, will allow a protective bubble to form around US forces. Adding this to our coast lines and engineering a new type of defense system to track it on radar and defeat it before it enters US waters will be another way to help counter this type of attack.
You bring up a really good point but with the advancement of 5G network coming into play, one benefit of that is that there is an increased amount of connectivity and broadband. I think the US will have to be even more cautious with this new technology coming into play because with the increased number of connected devices over a larger span of space bring a bigger challenge of defending against hack attempts.
DeleteI agree that incorporating ECMs with offensive operations is key to preventing future drone-swarm attacks. I'm sure you've already known about this for some time given your background but last year, the Marine Corps introduced the 12-man squad with a squad systems operator. This shows that the US knows they are coming into an age where their bid for success will be heavily dependent on their technological capabilities in defending these hacking attempts and your suggestion is one way they could incorporate this new method of warfare.
I believe you did a great job stating some of the main risks that the US should factor in going forward. One thing I believe could be a risk that needs to be considered is how easy/hard it is to take down the drones. In order for the drone swarms to be effective, it is important that it is hard for the enemy to take them down. I assume that every country that is working on drone swarm technology are also working hard on how to prevent drone swarm attacks. I therefore believe it will be important to focus on designing something that is hard to defend against.
ReplyDeleteSome ways the US can prevent enemy hacking is by making the software hard to hack. One of the links below talks about how to make non-military drones harder to hack. The article states that in order to do that, the location information that is exchanged needs to be better protected.
To answer the third question, I would assume that a big part of developing drone swarm technology has to do with how to protect against drone swarm attacks.
Some interesting articles:
https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/03/27/drone-hacking-protection/
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2016/webt-laser-swarms-drones.html
I agree with you on that while other nations have worked to advance drone swarm technology, the advancements in their defense systems have been lacking.
DeleteI would also add that in addition to the location of the information, ensuring that the information passed between each drone utilizes an asymmetric and symmetric key exchange process,