Perhaps the most revolutionary transformation in U.S. military operations during the past decade has been the rapid growth in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. Their application in the future will transform both warfare and the civilian sector.
Since 2000, the Pentagon’s UAV inventory has grown from fewer than 50 to almost 7,000 aircraft. The Predator-series alone has flown more than 1 million flight hours on almost 80,000 missions. Initially used for reconnaissance operations, UAVs also have become strike platforms.
These early generation UAVs, however, will pale in comparison to the advanced aircraft that will enter the market in the coming decades. Greater computing power, combined with developments in miniaturization, sensors, and artificial intelligence, will dramatically boost UAV capabilities, their ability to operate with each other, and how they interact with humans. Frank Kendall, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, acknowledged this rapid change when he recently directed the Defense Science Board to examine more aggressively the future role of intelligent, autonomous battlefield systems.
The Defense Department also must consider whether the nation has the adequate industrial base to support its vision. Although U.S. industry today is ahead, over time global competition will intensify as more countries — in both the military and civilian sectors — invest in robotics and information technology.
Plans for future military capabilities usually focus on war scenarios, rather than the broader context of the supporting industry, society, economics and policies. Also lacking is consideration of how UAVs could be used against the United States and its allies.
In one 2040 scenario developed for the Project on National Security Reform, strategists explored the long-range national security policy and organizational implications of a world in which U.S. dominance in autonomous systems leads to the capability to rapidly occupy and suppress dissent in an Iraq-like nation without the loss of any American lives and minimal disruption to noncombatants.
This scenario assumed the continuation of current trends in robotics and sensors technology, as well as a policy choice to enable greater interaction between the military and diplomatic arms of the U.S. government. The war game featured a veritable menagerie of UAVs, ranging from large hunter-killer armed UAVs to insect-sized systems acting as sensors and personal bodyguards for peacekeepers. All these aircraft were linked into collaborative systems that moved into an area and carried out their mission to observe and pacify with limited human intervention. Indeed, these UAVs operated in a similar manner as biological systems, such as single birds of prey or swarms of insects.
If the United States wants to achieve aspects of the vision laid out in this scenario, it will need to foster new innovations and maintain its high technology and industrial capabilities as the 21st century progresses. It will also need to reconsider the relationships between the military and diplomatic corps.
The Defense Department spends more on technology research and development than any other military organization in the world. It is a major driver in the U.S. national innovation system, including the development of new manufacturing technology. This military is currently undergoing a transformation from a Cold War heavy force posture, to a lighter, more agile networked force, more in line with the requirements of modern asymmetrical warfare.
Intelligent machine technologies that encompass robotics and artificial intelligence will constitute a major element in this transformation, not only in the weapons of the future but also in providing more intelligent information systems that will affect all military and industrial processes; it will help to reduce costs and increase quality, precision and speed.
If the United States continues to invest in intelligent machine development, the military should be able to begin replacing many manned systems with semi-automated and fully automated ones. With continued financial support, all major combat systems could be run autonomously or semi-autonomously from remote locations, which would substantially reduce the exposure of U.S. troops to hostile fire. While these technologies are often funded narrowly by the military, developments are generally transferable from the military to commercial worlds, and vice versa. Clearly, there should be strong interest within the military not only in its own research, but other government and commercially funded research in different industrial sectors.
The United States cannot afford to become complacent about its current technological lead. Other countries are investing heavily in their robotics industry. This technology will eventually become available to terrorists as costs decline and availability on the arms market increases. The United States will probably not be able to maintain its lead in robotics and UAVs for long, unless it opens its eyes to the emerging international competition and develops a comprehensive, national robotics strategy. This strategy may prompt a national robotics initiative, such as the Human Genome Project, or the Nanotechnology Initiative, if current programs are insufficient.
Studies have noted that the private sectors of Japan, Korea, and the European Community invest more in robotics research and development than the United States. Still, the United States currently leads in areas such as robot navigation in outdoor environments, robot architectures (the integration of control, structure and computation), and in applications to space, defense, underwater systems and some aspects of service and personal robots. Japan and Korea lead in technology for industrial robots, robot mobility, humanoid robots, and some aspects of service and personal robots (including entertainment). Europe leads in mobility for structured environments, including urban transportation. Europe also has significant programs in eldercare and home service robotics.
In contrast to the United States, Korea and Japan have national strategic initiatives in robotics, while the European Union has EU-wide programs. In the United States, investment in robotics technology, other than for defense related systems, remains meager at best.
The United States lost its preeminence in industrial robotics at the end of the 1980s. As a consequence, nearly all robots for welding, painting, and assembly are imported from Japan or Europe. The United States is in danger of losing its leading position in other aspects of robotics as well. In Japan, the national strategy for creating new industries includes robotics as one of the seven areas of emphasis.
In Korea, robotics has been selected as one of 10 areas of technology as “engines for economic growth.” The nation is committing $1 billion to robotics over a 10-year period. Similarly, in Europe there are many EU projects that bring together industry and academia with the goal of developing the robotics industry. The European Robotics Platform (EUROP), for example, is a major research initiative that is driven by a joint academia/industry program.
The European Commission recently announced that it would commit 600 million Euros to a new program focused on strengthening the robotics industry, especially in the areas of manufacturing and services. In contrast to what the EU, Korea and Japan are spending to promote their robotics industry, the U.S. National Science Foundation funding for robotics is miniscule, while DARPA support is restricted to military robotics. The major difference in robotics research and development programs across the globe is in the level of coordination and collaboration among government, academia and industry.
The most prominent robotics companies are presently in Japan, Sweden and Italy. Robotics companies in Europe and Asia include small businesses and start-ups. Although the United States is known for its entrepreneurial culture, there appear to be more start-ups and spin-offs from research labs in Europe than in the United States. U.S.-led research and development efforts have emphasized wheeled mobility, perception and autonomy in navigation. The efforts elsewhere in the world have addressed legged mobility, and perception and autonomy in support of other tasks, such as manipulation. The United States seems to have the lead in human-robot interaction, which is an important area. The fundamental driver for robotics in the United States is the Department of Defense. In Europe, Japan and Korea, these drivers are social and economic factors. Asians have identified an important role for robots in an aging society.
Most thinking about the increasing use of UAVs and unmanned systems by the military does not deal with industrial base considerations. Will the United States continue to have an adequate robotics industrial base to meet its needs in the future? If the demand from the military is for faster, cheaper, more numerous UAVs of varying sizes and capabilities, does the nation have the manufacturing capacity to meet this demand?
Up until now, the trend has been to produce ever more expensive and fewer platforms, but with robotic systems this trend is in part inverted, where the future demand will be for cheaper and more numerous systems. This highlights the issue of automation in defense manufacturing and its ability to quickly produce the variety and large numbers of unmanned systems called for by the military.
Research by the National Institute of Standards and Technology on the future of manufacturing for aerospace, automotive, and capital construction industries indicates that the future of UAV manufacture lies in robots building robots with increasing efficiency and flexibility. Over time, the role of humans in the production lines will drop from today’s hand lay-ups of composite skins to a future wherein flexible manufacturing robotics are fed near real-time battlefield intelligence to optimize the design of UAVs as they are being produced for specific battlefield missions, all at no increase in cost over traditional mass production.
The central importance of UAVs to the future of the U.S. military and the domestic economy is becoming clearer every day. To ensure the nation can sustain its current advantage and secure advanced capabilities in the future, the White House and the Defense Department will need to explore more comprehensive strategies and policies concerning the robotics industrial base.
Matthew Russell is a senior Chinese military and industrial base analyst with the futures group at TASC Inc. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of TASC Inc.