Global Security and Intelligence Studies Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2015 | Page 15

Global Security and Intelligence Studies
an experimental UAV helicopter to transport goods in areas that involved high risk
for helicopter take off and landings. Using a UAV to transport personnel is possible,
but less likely. A wide-body UAV used for transport negates many of the traditional
advantages of UAVs. The wide body will not have the reduced logistics footprint
or low observable capability. If there are personnel in the back, then reduced risk
to aircrew becomes an irrelevant advantage. The safety record would need to be
formidable before safety concerns became secondary to the incremental manpower
savings.
On the opposite extreme, the fully automated air-to-ground strike UAV is a
far less likely innovation. Of course, many countries already have fully automated
weapons to use against fixed targets or ships; we call them cruise missiles and
ballistic missiles. But, these weapons are not good at target discrimination. These
weapons certainly have their uses. In cases where the potential for collateral
damage is extremely low (e.g., a remote building or a ship on the open ocean) or
cases in which collateral damage is a tertiary concern, weapons with limited target
discrimination capabilities will continue to be employed. To expand the potential
target set of autonomous UAVs, significant effort will need to be made to enable
target discrimination logic that is typically derived from subjective judgments.
For most UAV strike targets, the current process in the Air Operations
Center involves a detailed cross-check between the Battlefield Control Detachment
(to deconflict with friendly ground forces), the Special Operations Liaison Element
(to deconflict with Special Operations Forces), lawyer (to ensure the target meets
Law of Armed Conflict requirements), targeteer (to estimate anticipated collateral
damage, and match preferred weapons to target type and desired effects), airspace
deconfliction (to clear path from aircraft to target), and the offensive duty officer
(to assign the target to an aircraft). Much of this coordination involves subjective
judgments that will be difficult to automate. Alternatively, it may be possible to
partially automate the process, flagging issues that require subjective interpretation
by a human operator.
In the interim, a more likely innovation would be an Ender’s Game style
virtual control center. In Orson Scott Card’s book and movie, the main character,
Ender, controls a fleet of spaceships from his 360-degree virtual command center.
While not unmanned, the spaceships followed Ender’s commands to the letter.
Technology is certainly within reach today to enable a single person to control a
fleet of UAVs. In this case, the UAV follows pre-programmed logic for specific tasks
but still involves a human-in-the-loop to provide subjective decision making such as
strike decisions. This type of innovation would be a useful method to take advantage
of the decreasing cost of UAVs. Lots of UAVs controlled from a minimal number
of command centers would “bring mass back to the fight” in an era of dramatically
rising aircraft per unit costs (Scharre 2014, 6).
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