Last week, I was at Northrop Grumman’s offices in Rosslyn, Va., for a press briefing on the DARPA-funded HURT II program. (HURT=Heterogeneous Unmanned Reconnaissance Team).
Click here to see the power-point presentation.
The idea is pretty straightforward. One day, the US Army may want to operate its unmanned aircraft fleet more like a collaborative team, and this could be the software package that makes it happen.
Think of an automated dispatch system that assigns UAVs to missions based on priority versus which units just happen to be lucky enough to have one in their area. As one UAV is re-assigned, the rest in theory are re-tasked to cover the hole.
It all works well on a power-point chart with lightning bolts, but the system’s true abilities and worth will be evaluated over the next two years. The army may decide to pay for it or take a pass.
But I wonder if the basic idea of HURT could be even more interesting if applied to weapons and not just sensors.
As weaponized unmanned vehicles proliferate, keeping humans in the loop every time a trigger needs to be pulled will be challenging. There is already pressure to automate as much of the target acquisition process as possible, and I wonder if the push for automation will continue on to the target engagement process?
If so, the HURT system appears to be the beginnings of the command and control software necessary to make it work.
Of course, the ethics and legality of automated trigger-pulling by unmanned weapons systems is a whole different conversation, but that discussion is already taking place, as I wrote about on this blog a few months ago. (Click here.)
Weapons are out of scope for HURT because it is an army supported. As soon as you start dropping things from UAVs, you have to clear it with the Air Force. It’s one of those silly turf war things that the HURT people understand and have been careful to avoid. So that’s why it’s just sensors, sensors, sensors for now.
So you’re saying “let’s take an unproven, untried and probably bug-ridden piece of software and give it power to launch lethal weaponry.“
I can’t see any problems with that. I for one welcome our new Skynet overlord!
Nothing wrong with sensors. However, they might think about putting Laser guidance on them.
This way the Air force can bring the bomb and join the party.
When you throw a war, peoples feelings get hurt when they are not invited. Then they have to cry on their stars as they go to bed early.…
So you’re saying “let’s take an unproven, untried and probably bug-ridden piece of software and give it power to launch lethal weaponry.“
Maybe you missed the part in the article where the sensor-only program will spend the next two years testing. IF we put a weapon on this, it won’t be till long after these initial tests are completed.
My question is when are our police forces going to start using these? How about the border patrol? Arm the uav’s fire at will. Crime will take a drop.
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THX 8), Quinta.