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How do drones get around the issue of communications jamming? I suppose they have some way (autonomous would be one way), but it seems to me that if communicati
by brobdingnagians 3y ago
How do drones get around the issue of communications jamming? I suppose they have some way (autonomous would be one way), but it seems to me that if communications are cut off, having a pilot with human judgement to respond to changing conditions will almost always have some advantage. Although, you could get a pretty advanced autonomous system that responded to changes from a pre-programmed attack plan.
- mrtksn 3y ago> How do drones get around the issue of communications jamming The same way the F-35 does I guess. Besides, it's pretty common for AI systems to overtake human capabilities these days, so when jammed they can just carry on. Sure, they do mistakes but humans do these too and the advantage of not carrying 80kg of fragile human and all the life support systems onboard is quite significant. It makes the thing much cheaper, it removes the need to come back thus doubles the range, it makes the thing smaller thus harder to detect and destroy, it doesn't have to limit its manoeuvres to human levels this makes the thing much more agile.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> The same way the F-35 does I guess. No, because that's in part "let the human pilot make decisions". > Besides, it's pretty common for AI systems to overtake human capabilities these days... Not in the realm of "should I shoot that thing?" sort of decisions.
- mrtksn 3y agolet the human pilot make decisions == let the machine make decisions It's not like pilots are making political decisions. They pilot and shoot predefined targets, avoid hostile actions. AI is capable of doing this. > Not in the realm of "should I shoot that thing?" sort of decisions. On the contrary, AI is very capable of making that decision. There are no philosophical dilemmas or children in the skies and even if there were we are at the point where we can tell the device not shoot children. There will be mistakes but human pilots makes mistakes too.
- ceejayoz 3y agoMilitary pilots absolutely make all sorts of decisions, like "that looks like a civilian target, maybe I have incorrect info" or "a little kid just ran into the target area" or "the controller says I just shot at friendlies". I would not currently trust an AI to handle those very well. What would an AI have done in this situation? What should it have done? "Russian pilot deliberately fired missiles at a Royal Air Force surveillance plane in international airspace over the Black Sea last year": https://apnews.com/article/uk-russia-fighter-jet-missile-black-sea-7e6c04c10d1e6035d01c01ca595ccb6e https://apnews.com/article/uk-russia-fighter-jet-missile-bla...
- mrtksn 3y agoAI can absolutely say "that looks like a civilian target, maybe I have incorrect info" or "a little kid just ran into the target area" or "the controller says I just shot at friendlies". What makes you think that AI can't incorporate those into decision making? Pilots do these through instruments anyway.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> What makes you think that AI can't incorporate those into decision making? The fact that state-of-the-art AI already fails at much simpler decisions. In the case of the Black Sea incident, the potential consequences include global thermonuclear war.
- alistairSH 3y agoThe same AI that gets confused when you stick a traffic cone on the hood? Yeah, I don't want that algorithm deciding who to bomb.
- CamperBob2 3y agoSelf-driving cars are a much harder problem than anything airborne.
- k12sosse 3y ago> Tarnak Farm incident Canada's first losses in a combat zone since Korean War. > "Let's just make sure that it's, that it's not friendlies, is all" > Twenty-two seconds later, he reported a direct hit. Ten seconds later, the controller ordered the pilots to disengage, saying the forces on the ground were "friendlies Kandahar".
- selimthegrim 3y agoWeren’t they in Croatia under UNPROFOR in the Medak pocket?
- ceejayoz 3y agoThe argument is not "humans never make a mistake". There's little evidence autonomous combat fighter AIs are better than humans at tough calls of this nature. They may be someday, but given the state of the art in self-driving, that day probably hasn't arrived.
- darknavi 3y agoKill Decision by Daniel Suarez is a great book (great in audio book form!) about autonomous drones and comms blackouts.
- SkyMarshal 3y agoCan you give us a TLDR what it says about comms blackouts and jamming?
- fragmede 3y agoThe book talks about how they serve multiple purposes. They can be used to hinder enemy operations, mask one's own activities, or isolate units to force them into pre-defined roles. Increasing reliance on digital and wireless communications in warfare can thus be viewed as a double-edged sword, offering advantages but also creating new vulnerabilities.
- mschuster91 3y ago> How do drones get around the issue of communications jamming? For one, by making it harder to jam in the first place. Starlink with its extremely directional antennas is a good example - an opponent would need an equally massive fleet of satellites or high-altitude ECM planes to jam it, and the latter ones can easily be targeted by anti-radar rockets. This is why the US government has been pushing insane amounts of money into SpaceX... Starlink is the future of interconnected wars.
- pjc50 3y agoSpaceX is not fully under operational control of the US government, if some of the reports from Twitter about geofencing are to be believed.
- _ea1k 3y agoI have yet to see a credible report of them denying a US government request.
- kristjansson 3y agoBig big big big difference between "they usually do what we ask" and "we have operational authority over this system, and can court martial anyone that impedes its operation"
- JetSpiegel 3y agoIsn't everyone with the root password a US Citizen? Last time I checked SpaceX's job opening, a US clearance was required.
- mschuster91 3y agoAssuming that the US ever enters any war directly, guess what their first action will be: take Musk out of the picture, deal with the legalities later on.
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- pjc50 3y agoThe plane-sized drones are capable of some autonomous operation. It may or may not be possible to spoof that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incid... The smaller drones are not usually autonomous. See the Starlink alleged incident. Inertial guidance is popular but very expensive to do accurately with laser gyros. I'm surprised there haven't been more "terrain following" systems. There's probably always going to be a continuum between manned and unmanned platforms, and a discussion about SEAD.
- lostlogin 3y ago> See the Starlink alleged incident. Ukraine says it happened and Musk does too - is ‘alleged’ needed?
- t0mas88 3y agoDepends on your definition of expensive. In comparison with other military hardware, inertial navigation systems aren't that expensive. They're also used in large numbers in civil aviation.
- ethbr1 3y ago> How do drones get around the issue of communications jamming? AESA derivatives as bidirectional communication devices seem like they will render jamming a lot less effective. Simply by virtue of being able to pump radar levels of power into communication. And current trends seem to be converging on flocks of drones, of which one or two can be specialized with uplink. Or simply babysat by stealthy HALE platforms like the RQ-180. You'll have to blanket an area with ungodly amounts of energy to fully jam point-to-point, highly directional links, especially for close range hops.
- vGPU 3y agoCan’t jam every frequency.
- salawat 3y agoHold my beer, and volunteer to pay the power bill. You say that as if it isn't incredibly easy to do to the point we have entire enforcement orgs built around trying to keep people from unintentiinally doing just that.
- vGPU 3y agoOk, let me clarify - can’t jam every potential drone frequency without taking out your own coms and giving the operator cancer.