For the 2016 Holiday Season Disney, partnered with Intel, launched a new entertainment show. That show was a swarm of 300 Intel Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s (UAV’s) connected together by a wireless link. For many, this may have been the first time they had heard of or witnesses the swarming capability of UAVs or even the first time they had watched a UAV in action. The technology behind these swarms is advanced algorithms and a suite of Command and Control systems programmed to fit the use or mission of the swarm. In Disney’s case, they wanted to show holiday type designs and had preprogrammed 3-D images of a dove, Christmas tree, star and other such objects to be portrayed in the night sky by the 300 UAV’s equipped with LED lights. This would have been a great show to see in person, whether you are a UAV hobby enthusiast, tech geek, or just like the lights and spectacle. How can this technology be put to a more practical or useful purpose toward serving the community or humanity, though?
First, we must define what swarm is. Swarm has several ways in which to define it relevant toward its purpose. When applied in warfare, an explanation is provided by Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security. He defined swarming as, “large numbers of dispersed individuals or small groups coordinating together and fighting as a coherent whole.” The Naval Postgraduate School's Timothy Chung defines swarm as, "In our context, swarming means a large collection of aerial robots working together to do something meaningful or interesting." However, it can most easily and generally be described with, “Swarm intelligence is the collective behavior of decentralized, self-organized systems, natural or artificial.” Swarm technology can be used by an operator in the loop controlling the swarm via a ground control station or the swarm can be launched with preprogrammed protocols and directives to control behavior and what actions are to be taken in accordance to what is encountered in their environment.
So far there are several studies being conducted and models tested of swarm flight. The U.S. and Chinese Governments have both been very interested in the emerging technology and its applications. However ethical questions have been raised over how exactly this swarm technology would be used and the degree of autonomy it would have. Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) are in existence already and some have been employed for years, such as missile defense systems that target objects dependent on size, shape, speed, etc., without human interaction. Some organizations have called for a halt to production of these types of weapons systems. In July 2015, some of the world’s top artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics researchers released an open letter calling for “a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human control.” There are certainly drastic implications toward the way a weaponized military swarm system could operate. There are however other potential arenas this technology could be used for benefit.
For civilian purposes the technology of swarming could be utilized in several of the ways I’ve previously discussed: Fire-fighting, search and rescue, hazard mitigation methods, agriculture, wildlife tracking/preservation. Each of these fields has already considered UAS application and what benefits, through greater precision and efficiency, could be garnered. With swarm technology, there is a great potential for advancing the amount and quality of data gathered and increased productivity. I believe the swarm technology coupled with interoperability is where the true potential lies. Swarm technology has the capability in aiding in search and rescue by increasing the effective sweeping pattern of the search and command/control as these devices will be linked and behave as one unit simultaneously. Firefighting can employ this swarm technology effectively by having multiple points of data gathering surrounding an entire fire as well as potential points of possible breakouts or monitoring firefighters on the ground to maintain contact and ensure the highest chance of success and survival. Hazard mitigation could include swarms to direct traffic ahead of an accident/construction or to help those leaving a natural disaster area. Utilized correctly swarms could direct people in a controlled way to leave the area before the event strikes and avoid further loss of life as in recent past or to direct survivors to rescue centers. In conjunction with other assets in use utilizing interoperability with manned systems, swarm technology has great potential to increase the effectiveness of many efforts.
Swarm technology is evolving and as many other technologies will continue to increase in its capacity to be applied to many different areas of industry. There are several applications for swarm technology civilian entities could use to drastically improve safety and efficiency. Combined with interoperability technology and techniques these methods could provide synergistic advancements in life-saving efforts, data gathering, and civil service.
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The first time I ever saw drone swarming was last year when Disney put on the holiday show. The next time I saw it was at the super bowl for the half time show. It was really cool to see all the drones work together to put on these shows. It is great a thing that big names like Disney, Pepsi and the NFL getting into this field it could lead to more and more big name companies, which will allow the industry to continue to grow.
ReplyDeleteThere are many good uses for drone swarming like firefighting or search and rescue but I can also see being extremely dangerous. The ability for drones to work without human piloting can become dangerous because how does a drone know if someone is a civilian or a part of the fight. I don’t believe that it is ethically right to have fully autonomous robots flying around that have the ability to kill anyone. There are so many good uses for drone swarming in civilian use but I think that fully autonomous drone swarming should be kept out of war. Great post, I only really thought about drone swarming as a civilian use but I see many ways that the military could use drone swarming.