U.S. Military Is Working On A Secret Project To Prevent The Islamic State From Launching Autonomous ‘Suicide’ Or Kamikaze Drones; The Future Of Drone Warfare Is Indeed Scary — Massive Swarms, WMD ‘Suicide’ Drones
Shivali Best had an online article today, March 23, 2017, on the DailyMailOnline with the title above. She begins, “in a bid to stop the Islamic State (ISIS) from launching ‘suicide,’ [kamikaze] drones, the U.S. Army is working on a secret project called, Mobile Force Protection Program (MFPP). Overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) [the Pentagon’s research arm] the program find ways to detect killer drones that do not rely on radio frequencies. The head of the project,” told the Daily Mail that plans could be put in place as early as this May. DARPA “anticipates awarding contracts for the first phase and testing and research, in the next few weeks. Phase I of the project is expected to take about a year; while Phase II will take about 18 months and involve the top two competitors from Phase I. Finally, Phase III will take around 21 months; and, will focus specifically on countering a large raid [swarm] of unmanned drones. Firms picked to proceed into testing, are expected to receive about $3M in funding” Ms. Best wrote. DARPA specified that “any methods used must not cause harm to any U.S. troops, or innocent civilians.” “This means that options such as high-powered, directed energy weapons, high-caliber weapons with ‘uncontrolled projectile trajectories,’ and live animals have all been prohibited,” according to the Daily Mail.
With 3D imaging, and technical know-how at the click of a mouse, the proliferation of all kinds of drones — miniature, micro, and macro, utilizing stealth technology; and, the ability to change its surface color –for example, a gray underbelly on cloudy/rainy days, or white, or light blue on sunny days,with all types of missions — is rapidly changing the nature, and character of warfare. How will drones change the nature of future war; and, where this technology is headed is open for debate. But, it is clear that this domain is advancing, perhaps faster than Moore’s Law.
In the immediate term, the Pentagon is worried about the potential for ISIS, and/of other adversaries flooding the battle-space with armed/suicide drones, in numbers beyond the deployed warfighter’s ability to neutralize them. Most aerial drone operators, as of now, rely on radio frequencies to remotely control their asset. Radio frequencies are vulnerable to jamming, and other kinds of disruptive interference that can render these same drones inoperable, or worse, turned around or hijacked to be used against the forces who deployed it in the first place. But, “drones which are programmed for one specific mission are harder to detect,” Ms. Best wrote.
J.C. Lede, Program Director for MFPP, recently told the Washington Post that: “Right now, the best way of detecting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is by listening for that radio signal. Once they stop emitting that radio signal, they are going to be a lot harder to find.” Ms. Best adds that “the main focus of the program is going beyond electronic jamming to stop unmanned drones of up to 200 pounds (90 kilograms). Mr. Lede’s team is focused on defending a moving convoy [of U.S. soldiers], which is more complex than defending a stationary target.”
The MFPP isn’t the only course of action being considered as you might guess; and include, “using a shotgun, sniper rifles, mini-rockets, water cannons, and even lasers,” Ms. Best noted. There are of course many other ways, and means to defend against a suicide drone, such as using an Eagle to grab it out of mid-air, using dog-fighting drones to shoot it down, hijacking drones to intercept the incoming, hostile drone, and/or perhaps hacking into the hostile drone and either disabling it, or maybe even turn it around to fly back and detonate over the enemy troops who sent it in the first place. Some of these methods/ideas however would not be allowed under the terns DARPA specified.
While the methods described to disable, or destroy the type of kamikaze drones that the MFPP initiative is focused on are likely to work, drone warfare, in the air, on the ground, and underwater — is likely to get a whole lot more sophisticated, complex, and lethal.
What Does Drone Warfare Look Like In Ten Years? The Future Of Drone Warfare Is Indeed Scary — Massive Swarms, WMD ‘Suicide’ Drones
The future of drone warfare could truly resemble something out of Star Wars or Independence Day.– aircraft carriers at the edge of space, opening their bay doors and deploying sophisticated drones of all shapes and sizes, with all kinds of missions. Dog-fighting drones, autonomous drones that interact with other drones — without human intervention — swarms of killer drones and/or suicide drones — miniature and micro drones [targeted killing machines] with DNA signature-enabled warheads; and, the list goes on limited only by the imagination and further technological advances. Adam Clark Estes, writing in the February 9, 2014 edition of The Atlantic’s – The Wire, “The Future Of Drone Warfare Is Scary,” says “the future of drone warfare is mind-bending. For example, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) “has been developing an unmanned submarine that can shoot out of the water and turn into an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) — just like Batman’s gadgets do,” Mr. Estes wrote. And of course, there will no doubt be weapons of mass destruction (WMD) drones, carrying nuclear warheads, or some other type of WMD weapon such as biological, chemical, and so on.
And, with the advances being made in 3D, empowered by big-data mining, deep learning, quantum computing, and artificial intelligence, the threat from drones and autonomous systems in the air, on land, and underwater, is only going to grow, exponentially, and in ways we have not envisioned, or understand very well. The human race is extremely talented and breathtakingly creative when it comes to ways to kill our enemies, and those who want to kill us. Drone warfare offers an intoxicating opportunity for the darker angles of our nature, and us, to unleash our creative killing imagination.
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