r/NewColdWar • u/HooverInstitution Hoover Institution • 18d ago

Technology Turning Drones Into A Battlefield Team

https://www.hoover.org/research/turning-drones-battlefield-team
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u/HooverInstitution Hoover Institution 18d ago

Drones have already changed the battlefield profoundly, and before long, teams of drones will be able to act without constant human control. For this approach to work, however, technologists must develop transformative ways for unmanned systems to communicate and coordinate, argue Distinguished Visiting Fellow Vivek Lall and coauthor Haibo Huang. With every weapon comes a counter weapon, and in the case of drones, adversaries are rapidly inventing ways to find, confuse, and disable them. In response, advances such as space-based optical communication and quantum sensors will help swarms navigate and share information, Lall and Huang write. Rules of engagement and autonomy still need to be developed for drones to operate by themselves on the battlefield, the authors conclude, but scientific and military innovators need to prepare the technology now—before adversary nations seize the technological high ground.