Armed and Dangerous? UAVs and U.S. Security

Technology challenges of stealth unmanned combat aerial vehicles

“…The number of ‘drone strikes’ has continued to increase ever since; the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports more than 400 US Predator/Reaper strikes over Pakistan from June 2004 to September 2015 (9) . Today, it is estimated that more than 70 countries possess UAVs for civil and military applications, while more than 50 countries are currently designing and developing all types of UAVs (10) , with an expected increase in global expenses for research, development, testing and evaluation from $6.6B in 2013 to $11.4 Bn in 2022 (11) .…”

“…It has been argued that UAVs are not transformative in the sense that they offer no strictly unique capabilities when compared to manned combat aircraft (10) , and they have been proven to be extremely vulnerable to all kinds of enemy threats, which limits how early current UAVs can be used in conflict (154) . The morality behind autonomous operations is unclear, especially when it comes to target identification and engagement. …”

The proliferation of peripheries: Militarized drones and the reconfiguration of global space

“…Drones exert their policing logic to create zones and sectors of gradations of sovereignty within the territories of peripheral states. This is because drones have the most potential to transform the nature of armed conflict when used not against the militaries of other states, but ‘against insurgent movements or others that lack even basic air defenses’ (Davis et al, 2014: 15). A dronified Pakistani state would have greater capacity to escalate bombardment of peripheries within Pakistan.…”

An Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy-based Multisensor Data Fusion applied to real-time UAV autonomous navigation

“…However, for many applications, the use of manned aircraft is not feasible or desirable since onboard human lives may be exposed to risk scenarios, which in many cases could be avoided. Furthermore, an alternative to the use of manned aircraft is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) [Cook 2007;Davis et al 2014], which are more difficult to be detected by conventional sensors and, in addition, some models cost only a fraction of a common aircraft. Also, according to [Cook 2007], the UAVs, which historically were thought of as merely complementary to manned aircraft, have proven to be an excellent power asymmetry tool.…”

“…The use of these systems plays an important role in surveillance, reconnaissance, target prediction and even combat missions by operating in a wider range of conditions and scenarios [Cook 2007;Davis et al 2014;Glade 2000;Liggins et al 2009]. Under the scope of civilian use of aerospace robotics, applications include rescue and disaster assessment, topographic surveys, mapping of areas of interest, precision agriculture, surveillance and access control, remote sensing for geological and climatic research and various utilities [Al-Kaff et al 2018;Lacerda et al 2018Lacerda et al , 2017Liggins et al 2009].…”