News Report: Robots to Join India’s Counter Operations against Maoist Rebels

There were 1,089 incidents of violence by left wing rebels (Maoists) reported in 2015 – 16. Out of the 508 people killed in the violence, 384 were civilians and 124 were security forces personnel. 89 Maoist rebels were killed by security forces in 2015 and 222 Maoists were killed in 2016, according to official figures.

New Delhi (Sputnik) – India’s largest paramilitary force, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), is taking the help of robots in its war against left wing armed rebels. The force is preparing for field trials of robots designed for replacing humans in activities that have high risk of casualty.

“Using the device, hidden bombs beneath the dirt tracks or 'pucca' roads could be identified and safely defused, thereby saving troops from being killed or maimed by its explosive impact,” said CRPF Director General (DG) K Durga Prasad during his pre-retirement interaction with the media.

The robot designed by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, will assist the forces in diffusing improvised explosive devices and land mines from remote locations. Attached with a high resolution camera, the robot will also be able to remotely peep into structures under insurgents’ siege to provide a reliable headcount. It can also be used to plant explosives into structures where insurgents are holed up during an encounter.

News Story: (US) Marines want new technologies to take enemy beaches

By: Jeff Schogol

Modern weapons can destroy ships and landing craft many miles from shore, forcing the Marine Corps to turn to new technologies to ensure Marines can land in force on enemy coasts.  

That's why a new task force is looking at everything from drone boats to electronic deception to get Marine raiders and landing teams safely ashore. 

The task force’s goal is to find existing systems to exploit gaps in enemy defenses, allowing Marine amphibious vehicles to get from ship to shore, said Maj. Jim Foley, of the Marine Corps’ Ellis Group, an internal think tank that explores future warfighting scenarios. 

“We’re going to have potentially different vehicles, but we’re going to enable them to get to the shore because we’re going to have more effective en route fire support,” Foley told Marine Corps Times. “We’re going to allow commanders to make better decisions because we’re looking at technologies that will support their command and control ability during those operations — and information warfare capabilities that will support that.” 

Industry, academia and government think tanks will show what technologies they have that meet the Marine Corps’ needs next April at Camp Pendleton, California, Foley said. The task force then hopes to allow Marines to drive those technologies in an amphibious exercise that fall. 

Read the full story at Marine Corps Times

Think Tank:Sea, air, land and space updates (20-Sep-2016)

Christopher Cowan, Thulasi Wigneswaran, Elisabeth Buchan and Alexander Vipond

Sea State

The US Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program is back in the headlines this week with new footage of the LCS Jackson’s June shock trials. The trials involved detonating a 10,000 pound (4,546 kilogram) explosive device near the vessel to simulate an attack and examine its survivability. The LCS Jackson appears to have fared well in the trials, which is good news for a program in troubled waters recently. A recent review has led to numerous changes to the program, including new crewing schemes, limits to the vessels’ vaunted modularity features, and deployment limitations for the first four LCS ships.

In news closer to home, HMAS Hobart, the Royal Australian Navy’s first Hobart-class air warfare destroyer, began builder’s sea trials last week. The trials are taking place in the Great Australian Bight and are designed to test the vessel’s non-combat features, including its propulsion and navigation systems. The Hobart will undergo further trials early next year to test its combat systems before initial operating capability is declared. However, as a recent ASPI report explains (PDF), the AWDs will become operational with an earlier version of the Aegis combat system than new build USN vessels, making them unable to operate the latest versions of some missiles like the SM-6.

News Story: No plans for killer US military robots... yet

ACTUV: The USA's future Anti-Submarine Drone Ship

By Thomas WATKINS

Robotic systems and unmanned vehicles are playing an ever-growing role in the US military -- but don't expect to see Terminator-style droids striding across the battlefield just yet.

A top Pentagon official on Wednesday gave a tantalizing peek into several projects that not long ago were the stuff of science fiction, including missile-dodging satellites, self-flying F-16 fighters and robot naval fleets.

Though the Pentagon is not planning to build devices that can kill without human input, Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work hinted that could change if enemies with fewer qualms create such machines.

"We might be going up against a competitor that is more willing to delegate authority to machines than we are, and as that competition unfolds we will have to make decisions on how we best can compete," he said.

Work, who helps lead Pentagon efforts to ensure the US military keeps its technological edge, described several initiatives, including one dubbed "Loyal Wingman" that would see the Air Force convert an F-16 warplane into a semi-autonomous and unmanned fighter that flies alongside a manned F-35 jet.

"It is going to happen," Work said of this and other unmanned systems.

"I would expect to see unmanned wingmen in the air first, I would expect to see unmanned systems undersea all over the place, I would expect to see unmanned systems on the surface of the sea," Work told an audience at a discussion in the capital hosted by The Washington Post.

The US military has over the past 15 years invested heavily in unmanned drone technology, used to surveil vast parts of the Middle East and Africa and sometimes conduct deadly strikes -- though remote human operators decide when to fire.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

Think Tank: Sea, air and land updates (3-11-2015)

Alice Slevison, Mercedes Page and James Mugg

Sea State

After the much publicised US Lassen’s voyage through contested waters in the South China Sea last week, the US Chief of naval operations Admiral John Richardson and his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Wu Shengli, held a video conference. The video conference was reportedly requested by the Chinese. Few details were released about the call, but Reuters reported that scheduled port visits by US and Chinese ships and planned visits to China by senior US Navy officers remained on track.

Meanwhile, Australia is proceeding with its scheduled live-fire naval exercises in China despite US–China tensions. Two warships, HMAS Stuart and HMAS Arunta, are spending three days at China’s naval port at Zhanjiang, in Guangdong province. The last time the Australian Navy conducted live-fire naval exercises was 2010.

Last week in Vladivostok, Russia laid down the first of two new arctic multi-purpose support vessels for the Russian Navy. The Project 03182 small marine tankers have been designed as multipurpose ice-class vessels for the transportation of liquid and dry cargo and for performing rescue operations. Russian media reported that the first vessel, named the Mikhail Barskov, will be delivered in November 2017, with the second following in 2019.

Think Tank: Sea, air and land updates (6-Oct-2015)

Alice Slevison, Mercedes Page and James Mugg

Sea State

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has detailed ambitious efforts to modernise the navy’s nuclear-powered submarines. Moscow is modernising 12 nuclear-powered submarines, with the boats intended to serve another 20 years. The modernisation effort is intended to bring the submarines up to the same technological level as Russia’s next-generation nuclear-powered boats, such as the Project 885M Yasen-class submarines.

India’s INS Trikand—a stealth frigate of the Indian Navy—reached Turkey yesterday, marking the start of a three-day visit. The sophisticated warship is equipped with a versatile range of weapons and sensors capable of addressing air, surface and sub-surface threats. The visit is part of an overseas deployment to West Asia, Africa and Europe to strengthen relations with friendly countries.

Sweden hasn’t ruled out the possibility of applying to join the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), according to Defence Minister Peter Hulyqvist. The 10,000-strong JEF began in 2012, and is designed to operate independently or in support of NATO, European Union or United Nations mission in the Arabian Gulf, the Middle East or in Europe. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Sweden has intensified efforts to shore up its security by joining bilateral or multilateral cooperative defence mechanisms in Northern Europe.

Editorial: Pokemon Warfare - The Rise of Military Robots

Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle
(Image: Wiki Commons)

By Shang-su Wu

A reliance on military robotics may not provide the advantages anticipated.

Unlike most adventure cartoons, the human characters in the Japanese cartoon Pokemon usually avoid dangers, instead relying on their “pocket monsters” to do the fighting. This unique style of combat may in fact anticipate the battlefields of the future, once military robots are in widespread use.

Although long-range weapon systems, especially remote-controlled drones, have considerably lower the exposure of military personnel in recent years, while reshaping relations between people and machines in modern warfare, the advantage has so far been limited to certain aviation units – in most theaters, “boots on the ground” are still indispensible. However, trends in robotic warfare may gradually transform combat, including infantry, into remote controlled, or even remote monitored, encounters, given the application of certain automatic functions. In other words, soldiers and their robots will be in different places, allowing the former to operate at lower risk. Without lethal threats, soldiers will be able to calmly operate robots free of physical constraints such as fatigue or heat, achieving superior performance.

This “Pokemon warfare” would indeed reduce casualties, and would help with other human resources issues as well. If the principal job of a soldier is to remotely operate or monitor a robot, the physical and psychological requirements would be less onerous than the present standards, giving militaries access to a wider pool of potential applicants. As has been seen with the drone experience, rookies without field experience may be more desirable than experienced veterans. As a result, a lot of ground training may be waived or at least scaled back, reducing costs. Moreover, controlling or monitoring robots would ease the popular worry about an extreme scenario in which autonomous robots lower the threshold of the use of violence, a concern again raised at the recent International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Buenos Aires.

Yet, even this middle way would nevertheless significantly change the nature of warfare, in several respects.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

News Story: Researchers in China pressured not to sign letter on 'killer robots'

Campaign to stop killer robots London Parliament square
(Image: Flickr User - Matthew Stokes)

Over 2,000 artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics researchers from across the world have signed an open letter calling for countries around the world to halt development in autonomous weapons systems, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao.

The letter is protesting weapons that "select and engage targets without human intervention," listing "armed quadcopters that can search for and eliminate people meeting certain pre-defined criteria," as one of the systems to which they are opposed.

The open letter, announced July 28 at the opening of the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence 2015 in Buenos Aires by director of the Center for Intelligent Systems at UC Berkeley Stuart Russell and professor of AI at the University of New South Wales Toby Walsh, has since been signed by many prominent people from within and without the AI and robotics field, including author and Fundamental Physics Prize laureate Stephen Hawking and Tesla founder Elon Musk.

The letter states that development of such autonomous weapons would trigger an arms race, with terrifying consequences.

Read the full story at Want China Times

Editorial: Is a Killer Robot Arms Race Inevitable?

Image: Flicke User - Insomnia Cured Here

By Franz-Stefan Gady

Leading robotics researches call for a ban of offensive autonomous weapons in an open letter.

Research into designing and producing autonomous weapon systems is soaring in the U.S. military. For example, the U.S. Navy is trying to figure out how to successfully launch a whole swarm of tiny autonomous drones in order to assault an adversary with a cloud of cheap and disposable UAVs and paralyze defenses by the sheer quantity of unmanned attackers in the air.

Last week (See: “Super Humans and Killer Robots: How the US Army Envisions Warfare in 2050”), I reported on the finding of U.S. Army-sponsored workshop on the future of land warfare that concluded that a new breed of super humans and autonomous combat robots will be two of the key features of the battlefield in 2050.

Now, over 1,000 artificial intelligence and robotics researchers, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis and professor Stephen Hawking among them, have signed an open letter that calls for ban of “offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control.”

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: Unmanned 'Killer Robots' - A New Weapon in the US Navy's Future Arsenal?

MQ-9 Reaper UCAV (File Photo)

By Franz-Stefan Gady

The US Navy moves unmanned drones to the top of its priorities.

This week, U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that he will streamline the navy’s efforts to keep up with advances in unmanned technology by appointing a new Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Unmanned Systems, who will bring “together all the many stakeholders and operators who are currently working on this technology.”

“Additionally, the Navy Staff will add a new office for unmanned in the N-9, the N-Code for Warfare Systems, so that all aspects of unmanned – in all domains – over, on and under the sea and coming from the sea to operate on land – will be coordinated and championed,” the secretary noted.

As as Breaking Defense reported today, this may help the U.S. military’s push to acquire genuine autonomously operating weapon systems. Breaking Defense’s Sydney Freedberg Jr. muses:

Imagine a swarm of buzzing, scuttling or swimming robots that are smaller but smarter. While a human has to fly the Predator by remote control, these systems would make decisions and coordinate themselves without constant human supervision — perhaps without any contact at all.

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Editorial: 4 Ways Conflict Could Develop in East Asia

By Robert Farley

As you watch East Asia in 2015, keep an eye on these four factors.

What will the future of war look like in East Asia? A recent conference at the Pandia Calogeras Institute, a think tank associated with the Brazilian Ministry of Defence, examined potential developments in warfare with an eye toward 2045. Here are several trends the group identified, with implications for thinking about how conflict may develop in East Asia:

A New Set of Security Players

Currently, states dominate the land and seascapes of geopolitics in East Asia.  But as we’ve recently learned in the Middle East, and as we’ve long known in Latin America and elsewhere, sub-state and trans-state groups can loom large on the threat matrix.  Ideological movements, ethnic groups, religious communities, and transnational criminal networks may reassert themselves in the Asia-Pacific, giving states something to worry about beyond a few uninhabited islands. Developments of this sort could drive interstate cooperation, and potentially change how regional militaries approach planning for war. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat

News Story: Australian army sees Asia's megacities as future battle zones

The Australian Army's Directorate of Future Land Warfare has stated that it is preparing for potential hi-tech combat in Asia's megacities against China's People's Liberation Army, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on July 15.

The report said the army will face very different kinds of land wars in the future, unlike its experience combating insurgents in the rural and remote terrain of Afghanistan and Iraq. The report stated that although the United States will continue to be the most influential strategic actor in the Asia-Pacific region, the Australian Army expects China's growing economic and military power likely to influence the nation's military strategy.

The report projected that the world's population will reach 8 billion by 2030, and said that Asia's megacities would be the potential backdrop for warfare in the near future.

Read the full story at Want China Times

News Story: Nexter Robotics announces first sale for its Nerva LG small robot UGV to Myanmar

Nexter Robotics a subsidiary of the French Company Nexter Group announced the first sale of its NERVA® LG robot to Myanmar. Nexter Robotics designs and manufactures small-scale robots capable of performing reconnaissance and counter-IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) missions for route clearance, while also offering new applications for Civil Security units.

This is first order that could be followed by a contract for 50 systems. The Nexter Robotics NERVA® sold to Myanmar is a civilian version with degraded sensors.

Read the full story at Army Recognition