IT 2 EC 2020 IT 2 EC Extended Abstract Template Simulation for Better Operational Decisions: Game of Drones / War of the Drones War of the Drones Bruzzone Agostino, Full Professor University of Genoa, Italy 1 , Di Bella Paolo, Colonel ITA Army, Simulationist 2 Massei, Marina, University of Genoa, Italy Abstract — UAV, UAS, UGV and the broad category of devices on multiple domains, often just named Drones, are now in their infancy, but we are going to see a lot of them in the future. The present paper wants to draw a sketch of a (future) military doctrine for the employment of drones paired with regular (i.e. human) army units and related needs for Exercise, Education & Training based on Modelling and Simulation. Since the employment of AI guided drones rises concerns because of the capability of killing without any human in the loop, conversely their massive employment toward other drones or other non-living entities, such as critical infrastructures, pose a different perspective. However, with the development of a mass production of drones, both the armies – the attacker and the defender – should develop a doctrine for their employment. It is evident the necessity to develop proper multi domain synthetic environments to study the new corresponding doctrines and technological solutions for deployment and employment as well as to train the Commanders and their staff. 1 Introduction hundred thousand of people across the World to use them for hobby such photography, drone race, etc. while there is 1.1 Rise of the Drones a growing number of private companies that offers services related to drone such as Mapping, Inspection, The broad categories of devices called “Drones”, which by Maintenance, Surveying, Photography, Filming, Drone large comprehends unmanned vehicles, robotics and Delivery, Monitoring, Localization, Detection, Spraying, autonomous systems, represent indeed the case of Seeding, etc. (Bruzzone, Massei et all, 2017). d isruptive technologies that “radically alters the symmetry This because unmanned vehicles are characterized by of military power between competitors, immediately many advantages, ranging from their agility and speed in outdating the policies, doctrines and organizations of all reaching places that would be otherwise difficult to access, actors” (Bower & Christensen, 1997). Those devices to their potential in replacing humans in the presence of called “Drone”, i n particular flying drones, ranges from dangers, to their expendable nature; due to these Unmanned Air Vehicles (gross weight of hundreds of Kgs) characteristics, Drones are increasing becoming popular to Smart Dusts (gross weight of grams); in particular, as and spreading exponentially among many different shown in Fig. 1 below, there is a spread spectrum of drones application fields, with special attention to the lighter and from UAV class with maximum wing span of 61 mt and less expensive models (Salvini 2017). weight of 15,000 kg to smart dust (SD) with minimum size of 1 mm and weight of 0.005 g. Between UAV and SD at both ends of the defined spectrum, there are various types of drones, which are called micro drones, such as micro unmanned air vehicle (μUAV), micro air vehicle (MAV), nano air vehicle (NAV), and pico air vehicle (PAV) (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). Fig.2 Gartner’s Hype Cycle of the Drone Industry, Fig.1 Spectrum of Drones from UAVs to SDs (Hassanalian & www.droneii.com Abdelkefi, 2017). However, it is not possible to ignore the fact that the Indeed, in the recent years their ownership has exploded: introduction of such a new technology can result itself a currently over 70 countries possess them, over 50 with carrier of new risks and dangers that require to be their own programmes, of which 23 have armed investigated (Bruzzone, Massei et all., 2017). programmes (Hopia, 2015). In particular, counter drone companies have big The civilian drone industry, as the Hype Cycle show expectations for 2020 because of airport’s security brea ch (Fig.2) is definitely heading to a positive increase. The (Fig.3: Gatwick’s incident, 2nd July 2018). availability of cheap devices (cost <1.000 USD) allowed
IT 2 EC 2020 IT 2 EC Extended Abstract Template Simulation for Better Operational Decision /War of the Drones However, in this paper we are not going to discuss about by Law of the Armed Conflicts long ago) because of “weaponization” of “piratization” of commercial drones argument of the mere existence of a human chain of (photo 1 and fig.3). However, given the fact that even a command. On the other extreme however, we could oddly single device or a few can disrupt/damage critical end up venturing into science fiction, imagining an AI that infrastructure, as in the case of 14 September 2019 attack gains control of Full Autonomous Systems and employ in the Abqaiq – Khurais Oil facility in Saudi Arabia, the those to kill humans. However, until now, the final threat posed by a massive employment of drone employed decision to engage and (most probably) kill, involve a according to a military doctrine, certainly escalates the human in the loop decision. problem from a tactical perspective into a strategic one. What it is necessary to underline here is that the analysis takes in consideration the mere existence of such devices and the full spectrum of capabilities they could serve the military, while the debate around the legal limitations of Full Autonomous Systems as weapons lies within the provision and interpretations of Law of Armed Conflicts. In particular, in the area of the interaction between the human and robots, it is necessary to take as well into consideration the role of the military Command and Control (C2) Operational Function. A M&S prototype for CD&E activity on UAV employed in urban operational scenario allows experimentation on robotic platforms, Fig.3 Gatwick’s drone incident, July 2 nd , 2018. (Source: Vimeo) their tactical procedures, their sensor payload, behaviours, missions and tasks according to their level of autonomy For such reason Drones are definitely a Force Multiplier, within the operational vignettes (Biagini, Corona, 2018). because of their inherent features and capabilities, even though not immune by limitations. In fact, Drones have been appreciated because they are quick deployable, ubiquitous and cheap to operate, however, vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, jamming and shooting down. Fig. 4 The 5 levels of Commercial Drone Autonomy Photo 1 . Makeshift drone captured by Russian Forces in Syria, (www.droneii.com) 2017 (Source NYT) 1.2 Drones: to be banned as the land mines? 2 DRONES FOR THE MILITARY Drones typically perform surveillance and information gathering missions (ISR) and ground fire support, this one 2.1 Drone: From Tactic to Strategic Advantage which has been the most legally and morally challenged so Having understood the tactical advantages given by the far. A Drone (Hopia, 2015) does not differ from manned employment of the drones for ISR missions and as flying aircraft, and accordingly there is not an ethical difference IED/ED (Adams, 2017) and the capability to substitute between launching a missile or firing an armed UAV ; this fixed and rotary wing assets in dull, dirty or dangerous because there is and always will be a “human” chain of (DDD) missions (Austin, 2010), it is necessary now to command, accountable for full responsibility. comprehend how such tactical advantage brought by The perspective indeed change when there is no human in drones can be enhanced into a strategic one. Of course the loop, arriving at the extreme of “ Robots killing drones could operate not only individually, but also in a humans” ( https://autonomousweapons.org/). However, it swarm which allows to install different kinds of sensors on possible to argue that even the choice to deploy Drones the platforms and it could enhance drastically data solely guided by AI can be clearly tracked back to a human acquisition capabilities of the whole system; this swarm decision; well, if it is possible to reconnect the use of any collaborative use represents one of most promising type of autonomous killing robot to a human decision, directions of research in this field (Burkle et al. 2011). however this introduce the risk of manipulation into justify Several research from different organizations have been even the positioning of land mines (banned and prohibited conducted in order to make drones fly as a group and act
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