DIY Auto-Drones

Vdawg sketches out some interesting possibilities:

"The US is inclined to observe the proportionality and discrimination elements of customary international law. Don’t deploy stuff that kills too much and discriminate between combatants and innocents. These requirements are wired into our Laws of Armed Conflict and Rules of Engagement. DoD process for acquisition of new technologies requires new tech exhibit explicit compliance with LOAC and ROE. This makes it pretty damn unlikely that the US will proliferate autonomous drone technology. Says DoD officials 'there will always be a man in the loop.' The same cannot be said of US adversaries who give a rat’s ass about any “Rules of Engagement."...This issue is brought to the limelight in the new 'Technology Horizons' report issued by the US Air Force. The expectation is that US adversaries, without stringent requirements as regards development of new technology, are likely to push the envelope on drone and other ‘fringe’ tech."

Interestingly enough, drones are a very old system. The Israelis utilized the first drone system during their first incursion in Lebanon in the early 1980s.

Comments

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Drones have been used in some form or another since the 1920s (typically as aerial targets). In fact, a young Marilyn Monroe worked at a plant which built Firebee drones during the Second World War. (Her first big break was a picture in which she poses with the propellor of a Firebee drone).

Looking at the new Raven drone, it's virtually indistinguishable, aside from the camera, from most hobby airplanes.

[6gw]

It isn't the concept of drones that is the subject of new interest, it is the equipping of those drones with sophisticated sensor intelligence and other AI modules. There is a BIG difference.

[A.E.]

Crispin,

That's pretty interesting, I need to brush up my PW Singer.

Vdawg,

I agree, but thought people might not know about unmanned platforms. Sensors and AI is really the next frontier.

[A.E.]

Crap, meant "unmanned platforms in general."