The Coming Swarm

1. The Coming Swarm Robotics and Automation on the Battlefield Paul Scharre Fellow and Director of the 20YY Warfare Initiative www.cnas.org/20YY 28 April 2015

2. 20YY: Major focus of 1st year on autonomy 2

3. Challenges and Opportunities How can autonomy help us? • Address these and other existing challenges? • Seize opportunities and present new challenges for adversaries? • Prepare for additional challenges autonomy will enable others to do to us? Challenges the Joint Force has today: • Range • Quantity • Cost • Deluge of data • Speed 3

4. Why Robotics and Autonomous Systems? Benefits of Unmanned, or Uninhabited, Vehicles: • Physical attributes – size, weight, speed, range, endurance, maneuverability, signature • Ability to take greater risk Benefits of Autonomy: • Operate UxVs in comms-degraded or –denied environments • Safety and reliability, cost • Speed ONR 2014 swarm boat demo 4

5. Robotics and Autonomy in the Joint Force What is the role of robotics and autonomous systems to: • Help us do what we already do better? • Or at lower cost? • Or fight differently? • Or respond to a potential enemy capability that autonomy will enable? 5

6. Role of Autonomous Systems in the Force • Mix of human-inhabited and uninhabited platforms • Mix of human and machine cognition • Robots are not combatants – Will not replace warfighters; may replace some jobs/tasks • Humans commanders remain “in the loop” for decisions about specific targets to be engaged 6

7. From Network to Swarm At the operational level of war, what does that add up to? Autonomous systems will enable militaries to shift from fighting as a network to fighting as a swarm. Benefits of reconnaissance-strike swarm: • Range & persistence • Daring • Mass • Coordination & intelligence • Speed ONR 2014 swarm boat demo 7

8. Range and Persistence Uninhabited platforms can operate with greater range and persistence on the battlefield, untethered by the limits of human endurance • Range and persistence limited by power • With refueling (or other power solutions), ultra long endurance possible (days, weeks, months, years) • Cost savings – Fewer platforms needed in the force to sustain the same number forward in the fight • Operational savings – More assets forward in the fight • Particularly relevant in A2/AD environments when fighting from long range 8

9. Range and Persistence - Examples • Power projection in A2/AD environment • HALE “pseudolites” for comms & PNT relay • Forward airborne missile defense • Persistent (low visibility) surveillance • Pre-positioned persistence payloads 9

10. Daring Without a human onboard, commanders can take more risk with uninhabited platforms, allowing new concepts of operation. Cost is still a factor in assuming risk. • Front wave of an assault • Stand-in jamming (e.g., MALD-J) • SEAD/DEAD • Early threat interdiction • Casualty evacuation • Expendable scouts and decoys behind enemy lines • Clandestine reconnaissance and sabotage 10

11. Mass By building built at lower cost, robotic platforms can bring mass back to the fight in a significant way. Large numbers of low-cost expendable/ attritable systems – can be built to take risk Advantages: • Disperse combat power – impose costs on enemy • Replace platform survivability with swarm resiliency • Graceful degradation of combat power • Saturate enemy defenses 11

12. Mass - Examples • Small uninhabited attritable air vehicles, launched from aircraft, ships, or undersea, to jam, deceive, recon, and strike enemy targets – hunt mobile TELs, counter-IADS • Low-cost robotic ground vehicles using robotic applique kits on existing HMMWVs, M113s • Cheap 3D printed mini-drones? Limitations: • Personnel –Shift from 1-to-1 to 1-to-many approach • Maintenance – Modularity; design for systems “in a box;” multi-compo units to leverage RC maintainers 12

13. Coordination & Intelligence A deluge is not a swarm. Swarming yields more than simply mass – better coordination & intelligence on the battlefield. • Coordinated attack and defense • Time-synchronized multi-vector attacks to saturate enemy defenses, combined with jamming, decoys, high-power microwaves • Deconflict or coordinate attacks on targets • Cooperative defense to protect high value targets • Dynamic self-healing networks for reconnaissance, communications relay, adaptive logistics, intelligent minefields 13

14. Cooperation & Intelligence – More examples • Distributed sensing and attack • Distributed sensors can function like an array • Conversely, distributed emitters can conduct precision electronic attack • Deception – large scale feints, coordinated emissions from dispersed elements • Swarm intelligence - distributed voting and information sharing for target ID, accurate geolocation / mitigation against PNT degradation, resilience to spoofing 14

15. Is the Future the Swarm? Arquilla & Ronfeldt posit evolution of doctrine: • Melee - Chaotic combat among groups with individuals fighting non-cohesively • Mass - Large formations of individuals fighting together in ranks and files (e.g., Greek phalanx) • Manuever - Multiple formations fighting together across distances (e.g., Blitzkreig) • Swarm - Large numbers of dispersed elements coordinating and fighting as a coherent whole 15

16. From Melee to Mass 16

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19. Swarming Requires New C2 Paradigms • How do you control a swarm? • What commands do you give it? • How does it communicate internally to coordinate action? 19

20. Speed Autonomous systems fall short of human cognitive abilities in many ways … … But they excel at speed. Autonomous systems can accelerate the pace of battle by: • Compressing decision cycles for human operators • Through decentralized swarming, allow tactical decision-making and reaction closer to the battle’s edge • By taking humans “out of the loop” entirely, can result in faster reaction times impossible for humans to match 20

21. An Accelerating Pace of Battle How do humans keep pace with an accelerating pace of operations? Inside the enemy’s OODA loop or our own? Challenge of complex automated/autonomous systems operating in real-world, competitive environments against adaptive adversaries (hacking, spoofing) • Examples from financial markets – 2010 flash crash • Strategic stability concerns – “flash wars?” • Human circuit breakers? • Cold War examples – from fragile stability to resiliency • Role of human cognitive enhancement to keep up? 21

22. Obstacles and Limitations Institutional • Resources • Doctrine • Culture Technological • Power • Communications • Autonomy • Human-machine teaming to enable optimal combined cognitive system • Predictability & control • Cyber-autonomy paradox 22

23. 7 Paradigm Shifts to Harness Autonomy • Unmanned -> Human-machine teaming • Fully autonomy -> Operationally-relevant autonomy • Driving/piloting -> Mission-level command of swarm of cooperative autonomous systems • Few and exquisite -> Many and cheap • Platform survivability -> Swarm resiliency • Capability -> capability per dollar • Hardware -> Software 23

24. Path Ahead • Information revolution is leading to smarter machines • How will we fight with them? • Robots don’t fight wars – people do • But the tools of war will continue to evolve • Urgent need for experimentation and iterative doctrine, concept, and technology development 24