The next industrial revolution
Hugh McKenzie finds out what unmanned vehicle technology will mean for the future of warfare.

Unmanned vehicles are presently being used in surveillance and bomb disposal roles, but future applications could include a range of dangerous tasks currently performed by people.

AUSTRALIA’S future military operations will be supported by forces of robots and unmanned vehicles that will be highly integrated and controlled by Defence personnel from a distance, according to Defence Minister Robert Hill.

Senator Hill said the Government was investing more and more in the research and development of unmanned vehicle technology for operational and surveillance purposes.

“These new intelligent and largely autonomous systems will, in the future, be able to carry out hazardous tasks traditionally reserved for warfighters, which will reduce exposure and risks to ADF personnel,” he said. “This will be a huge leap in capability for our Defence Force. I envisage that in the future, unmanned battlespace vehicles will be deployed in fleets to gather information, conduct surveillance, sweep for mines, defuse bombs and carry out a range of dangerous tasks.

“The autonomous systems will be able to provide the ADF with increased access to its areas of operation, especially in hostile and difficult terrain,” Senator Hill said.

“This advance in technology has the potential to increase the operational effectiveness of our troops and enhance surveillance capabilities, while reducing risk to personnel and reducing the cost of operations.”

The Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), under its Automation of the Battlespace Initiative (ABSI), is working with companies such as Aerosonde, Saab, Nautronix and Tenix that are researching autonomous vehicles.

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DSTO is also working with the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at the University of Sydney. DSTO and ACFR signed an agreement earlier this month extending their collaboration for another three years.

The agreement forms a new Centre of Expertise (COE) in Defence Autonomous and Unmanned Vehicle Systems that will focus on the development and application of these systems for Defence applications, according to Deputy Chief Defence Scientist (Systems) Dr Nanda Nandagopal.

“This COE will allow us to extend our collaborative research and development in autonomous and uninhabited systems for Defence and will exploit leading edge technologies to address strategic challenges such as the aging population, terrorism, reducing the cost of operations and force transformation,” he said.

At present, four broad tasks have been identified under the terms of the agreement: a program to establish an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) experimentation infrastructure within DSTO; the development of a science and technology “roadmap” for UGVs to help the ADF identify critical systems requirements, major technology areas and the main drivers for ADF UGVs; and training and research opportunities for DSTO and ACFR, particularly in estimation and data fusion, autonomous navigation, sensors for autonomous navigation, and systems engineering.

The military application of autonomous underwater vehicles (UUVs) will also be investigated, particularly teams of UUVs equipped with advanced acoustic sensors for mine clearing.

Dr Anthony Finn, Head of ABSI, said the program had already made significant advances.

The focus of ABSI is a combination of multi-vehicle systems and air-surface integration of the vehicle systems.
“There are a range of technical, legal and safety issues that will need to be addressed before we see a fleet of unmanned armed vehicles such as a group of Abrams, but a fleet of unmanned ground vehicles is a very realistic prospect for the future,” Dr Finn said.

“Most of the relevant technologies required for automation are not platform specific.

“An autonomous vehicle must have the capacity to abstract information from its environment using its sensors and, based on both the individual and collective priorities and capabilities of the systems and sub-systems, autonomously make decisions that result in control actions for the individual platforms and payloads.

“These systems must capture, represent, and interpret the relevant environmental cues like location, geometry, spectral content, and then autonomously combine and manipulate this information appropriately.”

 

 

 

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