It is dusk in the Sangin Valley, in southern Afghanistan, and a fuel convoy is winding its way through the dusty, rugged landscape. Thousands of feet overhead, invisible to radar and the naked eye, an aircraft scans the surrounding area with high-resolution cameras that are able to pick out footprints on a beach.
The aircraft spots a change in the terrain on the route ahead. Several rocks have been moved. The lead vehicle is tasked to take a look. Having correctly spotted the tell-tale signs of disturbance indicating a buried improvised explosive device (IED), the aircraft sends a new, safe route. The convoy continues on its way.
The aircraft is an unmanned drone, a piece of equipment that in the past few years has transformed the battlefield more than any other weapon system. But the scenario depicted here is subtly different to those seen every day in Afghanistan. The next generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will not rely on a pilot, based at a ground station thousands of miles away and operating the drone with a computer. The next UAVs will be capable of operating autonomously — they will have the ability to react to threats, identify targets and filter intelligence information without human intervention.
Martin Topping, of BAE Systems, said: “Today’s drones are kids’ computer-games technology compared to the aircraft we’re developing, where you push a button and off they go with the intelligence to make decisions themselves.”
No country with a serious military capability can now afford to be without drones — and their use has brought such intelligence and surveillance dividends that there is an increasing role for them in other spheres of life, notably counter-terrorism and the monitoring of drug-trafficking networks. The Mexican Government, for example, recently asked the US to supply it with the new-generation Global Hawk UAV, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, in order to track drugs barons.
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Israel has led the field in UAVs, and Israeli designs have been procured around the world. Russia is one of the latest countries to realise that armed forces without drones are at a distinct disadvantage. But Moscow will not be getting the latest UAV to come out of Israel Aerospace Industries. The Heron TP is as big as a Boeing 737 jet and is one of the most advanced UAVs in the world, with a flying range of up to 20 hours.
Britain has numerous UAV systems, some no bigger than a model aircraft, that are used by infantry battalions as they patrol in Afghanistan. But the most sophisticated systems in the world are from the United States. These are the Reapers, which were initially known as Predator Bs and were developed by the American company General Atomics Aeronautical Systems. The Ministry of Defence has bought up to a dozen. They are twice the size of the original Predators and can carry six times the number of weapons. The Predator carries only two Hellfire air-to-ground missiles.
Predators and Reapers play important roles in Afghanistan, tracking the Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters. The next version, called Avenger, has a 41ft fuselage and 66ft wingspan and will be able to operate at up to 60,000ft, like the manned U2 spy plane.
Major-General James Poss, a US Air Force surveillance and reconnaissance expert, said: “My first experience with the Predator came in late 2000, when I was chief of intelligence for US Central Command air forces, operating out of North Carolina and Saudi Arabia. We bought our first system, and having a real-time video camera that we could fly deep into Iraq revolutionised the way we could operate air power. The ability to stay over a single spot on Earth for as long as we want to allows us to see a pattern of life of the adversary; see who goes where, who comes out of individual houses, where the cars go after they have left and also take a longer gaze to make sure there aren’t any innocents there if we decide to take action against the target.”
The US military is developing wider-area sensors, akin to the compound eye of a fly or a phased-array radar. “The Predator has a camera that will see maybe 50 to 200 metres on the ground, depending on the resolution you want,” Poss said. “We have some folks that have worked out that you can put a large number of these sensors together and stitch the pictures so that you have a UAV flying in a city-size circle, providing a complete picture.
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“You could be watching most of downtown Washington DC and if you want to watch what’s going on at the Washington Monument you can, and someone else can watch the Pentagon at the same time, and you can keep 30 days of pictures in storage, so if you get a tip that someone has left at 17.00 on Tuesday and went to the Washington Monument to meet an al-Qaeda agent, you can go back to 17.00 and follow him and follow his car and watch him meet with the al-Qaeda agent, still using the same image, which is an amazing advancement.”
Topping said that UAVs were becoming so sophisticated that the latest generation of fast jets, including the F35 Joint Strike Fighter that is being developed by US and British companies, would be the last manned aircraft over the battlefield. He said: “From a technological point of view, if you remove the pilot you could start getting aircraft that fly like they do in sci-fi movies. You could have acceleration at a speed the human body can’t withstand, or a plane that literally stops in mid-air and changes direction.”
At an airbase near Preston in Lancashire, BAE Systems has been running a UAV programme for a decade — its existence was secret until 2006. The Ministry of Defence is jointly funding two major projects, the first of which, Mantis, has cost £100 million and took its maiden flight in 2009. It sits alone in the corner of a large hangar, a brooding, bronze creature with a 360-degree camera hanging like an eye under its belly. Designed for surveillance and reconnaissance missions, it can fly for 24 hours at up to 55,000ft. It will carry Brimstone anti-armour missiles and it will operate in all conditions, day or night — it can even see through rain clouds. Mantis could be in operation by the end of the decade.
The other project, Taranis, is a menacing black triangle that adds the element of stealth and is designed to operate deep in hostile territory. “Taranis is about being very difficult to spot,” said Peter Findlay, a worker on the project. At the moment it is merely a capability demonstrator, but a later generation could be used by British Armed Forces from about 2030.
BAE is also developing an algorithm that will allow computers on board UAVs to identify which of the images captured are of interest, even to the extent that UAVs may be able to identify anyone holding a weapon. Currently, drone operators have to look through every image captured. The new software will save time, allowing one ground operator to monitor data captured by several unmanned aircraft.
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In a war of the future, UAVs could be tasked to patrol a border for hours or days at a time, alerting an operator when their sensors pick up movement, or to fly over a wide area, identifying targets and eliminating them.
However, although the technology to enable UAVs to fire weapons automatically is achievable, it raises sensitive issues. The idea of “robots” flying around the skies and using lethal force requires a big leap of faith. Findlay believes that there will always have to be a human operator to “press the big red button”.
Although the tendency has been to design bigger UAVs, to allow for larger weapons payloads and greater range and operating altitudes, the opposite can also apply. For example a Californian company, AeroVironment, has developed an “aircraft” that looks like a hummingbird for the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, under its “Nano Air Vehicle” programme. This remote-controlled UAV can climb and descend vertically and fly sideways, forward and back. It carries a video camera and is so small that it can be flown inside a building. It has obvious counter-terrorist applications. It has a wingspan of only 6.5in and weighs less than an ounce — including its batteries, motors, communications systems and camera.
In a recent demonstration, the mini-aircraft had to show that it could hold a hover position in a 5mph gust of wind, without drifting downwind more than one metre. It also had to prove that it could hover for eight minutes and fly forward, reaching speeds of up to 11mph. The hummingbird UAV met its goals, which included having to fly from outside into a building through a normal-sized doorway.
Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) are also under development, although the same concerns have been raised about needing a human as back up. “The hearts and minds battle will always require troops on the ground, but there is a role in dangerous areas in using this technology to protect them,” said Tim White, leader for information, networks and autonomous systems at BAE. The company has two main UGV prototypes — the Wildcat, a converted rally car, and MOATV, a dark-green dune buggy with a rear platform. Both vehicles are equipped with sensors and computer software that allow them to drive themselves, working out the best route as they go.
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The Wildcat carries computer screens, a keyboard and a joystick, to allow a driver to take over if necessary. The screens show how the software analyses the surface of the road and the topology ahead, in order to identify drivable surfaces. One day, this software could be used to create tools for civilian functions.
“There will be a time, when we build up trust, where you could be driving around the M25, put the car on cruise control, and read the newspaper,” White said.
The MOATV is designed with more specific tasks in mind. It can be operated by a small, black personal digital organiser (PDA) that is about the size of an iPhone, a unit that will allow an individual soldier to summon the vehicle to bring weapons to a remote outpost or to evacuate a casualty under fire. Soldiers travelling on foot over a long distance will be able to dump their bags and other equipment in the vehicle, which will then follow them to their destination, all without a driver.
The Wildcat and the MOATV are still experimental models but they are advanced enough to brake if someone steps in front of them. Once the cost of sensors is reduced, a similar unmanned vehicle could be in operation within a decade.
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Head to head: How two UAVs measure up
Model
Global Hawk AF-8
Heron TP
Manufacturer
Northrop Grumman
Israel Aerospace Industries, Elbit Systems
Wingspan
39.9m
26m
Length
14.5m
14m
Gross take-off weight
14,630kg
4,650kg
Maximum altitude
19,800m
13,700m
Maximum endurance
35 hours
36 hours
Top speed
400mph
230mph
Onboard
Eleven data collection instruments, including hurricane and weather monitoring
Communications, signalling and imaging instruments
Animals at war: seven beasts of burden
Drones are not the first auxiliaries that humans have used to wage war by proxy — animals have been in the line of fire for centuries.
Pigeons The birds’ natural homing instinct makes them ideal military messengers. A pigeon carried news of Caesar’s conquest of Gaul in 52BC, and of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo. During the First World War, an American-trained pigeon named Cher Ami was on his twelfth flight when he was shot through the breast. He lost his leg, but flew the remaining 25 miles in as many minutes and limped home with a message — from a stranded platoon — hanging from his severed leg. His efforts saved scores of lives. Today, British-trained birds are being used in Iraq to detect chemical and nerve agents.
Rodents Gambian pouched rats have been trained by aid groups to detect landmines. They have an acute sense of smell and, weighing about 4kg, are light enough to crawl over a mine without detonating it.
Dogs Man’s best friend is also Man’s best fighting companion. In the run up to the Great War, dogs were conditioned to endure the sounds and sights of the battlefield, and trained to bring back messages. At the front, they acted as sentries, laid cables and fought off plagues of rats in the trenches. In the Second World War, dogs were used to sniff out mines and even undertook parachute jumps. Today, the animals are still used to detect landmines, as they can sniff out devices made of plastic, wood and glass.
Horses & mules The loyalty and bravery of horses has been exploited for more than 4,000 years; they were first enlisted in Ancient Greece to pull chariots. Alexander the Great’s mount, Bucephalus, died a hero at the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 and had a town built over his grave. In the First World War, 250,000 horses died supporting the British on the Western Front and the Russians had 1.2 million horses in the field by 1945. China, India and South Africa still patrol frontiers on horseback, while our Household Cavalry is kept trained and ready to fight.
Dolphins & sea lions As far as the US Navy is concerned, bottlenosed dolphins and sea lions are “Advanced Biological Weapons Systems”. Dolphins are trained primarily to detect sea mines using their inbuilt sonar, or echolocation, while sea lions use the same sonic sense to seek out enemy frogmen. Up to 75 US navy dolphins and 20 sea lions are thought to have “served” in the Persian Gulf in recent years.