Posted on 12/15/2021 6:04:43 AM PST by Kaslin
Aggravated bees attack unfortunate honey seekers from all directions. The mad birds in Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" mastered the tactic, attacking en masse residents of a small Northern California town in coordinated swarms.
Ticked off bees are a fact, malign Hitchcockian birds a fiction, but both demonstrate aerial swarm attacks can be ferocious and effective.
Which is why at least two dozen defense ministries on Earth are spending billions on defending against enemy swarm attacks and on conducting their own swarm offensive strikes.
Several years ago, the Pentagon ordered its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to analyze and develop swarm attack systems.
Here's one question DARPA addressed: Can armed American aerial and ground robots, guided by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems (digital electronics and software) conduct successful coordinated swarming attacks that overwhelm an enemy target without risking the lives of U.S. military personnel?
Another question: Can these attacks be conducted with minimal or no human guidance after the swarm is ordered to attack?
The begged question but a relevant one for a follow-up column: Is a robotic attack without a human commander in the loop throughout the entire attack ethical?
In November DARPA completed another field experiment in what it calls its OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program. The test was conducted in Fort Campbell, Tennessee. Aerial and ground (wheeled, tracked) autonomous robots participated.
The exercise took place in a complex "urban environment" (Pentagonese for city). According to DARPA, the test examined "advancements in collaborative swarm autonomy and human-swarm teaming capabilities" with the goal of developing tactics that can be translated into software code robots can follow.
Swarm tactics are as old as warfare. Swarms of long-range arrows fired by Welsh and English archers broke up large formations of enemy knights. Today in the Persian Gulf, Iranian speedboats swarm attack tankers. However, Revolutionary Guards run the boats, not computers.
In 2021's South China Sea, China's maritime militia of ostensibly civilian fishing boats encroaches on Filipino and Vietnamese Exclusive Economic Zones. The small Chinese boats swarm Filipino and Vietnamese vessels when they challenge Beijing's invasion.
AI and robots add another dimension -- and that dimension is no longer theoretical.
Several defense-related websites concluded Israel's May drone foray into Gaza represented the first "true swarm" attack in history. In an article published July 7 in Defense One, researcher Zachary Kallenborn called the attack "a new benchmark in drone technology." The drones had a reconnaissance mission. They located targets and relayed information to Israeli mortar and missile units. However, Kallenborn concluded the drones were conducting "coordinated searches," suggesting they were communicating, collaborating and "making collective decisions." He added: "In a militarized drone swarm, instead of 10 or 100 distinct drones, the swarm forms a single, integrated weapon system guided by some form of artificial intelligence."
A biological comparison: like a multicellular biological system with a brain, the robot components work together to achieve higher-level goals. A drone identifies a target that fits a pattern the drone's AI recognizes. The drone that records the pattern then notifies the entire swarm. The notification triggers a behavior -- a mass attack. In effect, the AI mimics a human brain's neural circuits
Humans can control or intervene and provide new orders for the drone swarm. However, DARPA envisions drone and robot swarm attacks occurring without human oversight. An acronym already exists: Armed, Fully Autonomous Drone Swarms (AFADS).
Programmed, nonconnected "self-guided drone" attacks are similar to cruise missile attacks and several have been quite successful. In September 2019, 25 Iranian drones attacked the Saudi Arabian Abqaiq oil facility and Khurais oil field. The damage temporarily took over seven million barrels a day of oil off the world market.
The U.S. Army and Navy know enemy robot swarms are a threat. They are developing high-powered "microwave cannons" that can burn drone "brains" and protect armored units and Navy ships from swarm attack.
And now it’s time for a quote from Uncle Joe (not Uncle Slow Joe currently in the White House, but the original Uncle Joe).
Quantity has a quality all its own.
Joseph Stalin
The Lepage Glue Gun will take care of this.
Old Catch-22 reference.
Skynet, here we come.
From the title I thought this was more organized smash and grab.
You would have to "Take the Last Train to Clarksville"
They need very *emphatic* off switch for these things.
“You spent a billion dollars to build an unstoppable, nuclear armed, autonomous killer robot and didn’t bother to put in an off switch? What the Hell were you thinking?”
.
PREY - Michael Chrichton
Saw that movie scene. One of the most frightening prospects I’ve ever seen. The drones are probably way too small and stealthy to be detected. Too numerous and fast to be shot down. Extremely portable and easy to conceal. Incredibly accurate and deadly against personnel.
If the scene in the movie is a potential reality, I just have to wonder what kind of countermeasures are possible in a practical way? Jamming? I suppose these could be autonomous and not relying on any signal for guidance once programmed and launched. An EMP based shield (not jamming signal but destroying on-board electronics)?
Israeli companies already have anti-drone swarm technology. AI controlled relatively small lasers, small enough to be mounted on a small plane.
Sounds good, but how to have this where/when its needed.
That’s why the systems are for sale.
Russian Saiga-12 shotgun (modeled after the AK series).
Ideally, you would need something that could fill the air above you with flak. Maybe some upward-pointed claymores.
Great movie...but scary method of battle.
Still, I’d like to have a few...LOL.
Exactly what I was going to mention. Published 2002, with extensive citations to the literature and conferences.
Same theory.
Nazis called it blitzkreig
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.