In a chilling breach of military security, a swarm of drones has been violating air space over Langley Air Force base in Virginia for 17 days since last December, and the Pentagon appears clueless as to who is controlling these vehicles.
U.S. Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly wasn’t sure what to make of reports that a suspicious fleet of unidentified aircraft had been flying over Langley Air Force Base on Virginia’s shoreline.Kelly, a decorated senior commander at the base, got on a squadron rooftop to see for himself. He joined a handful of other officers responsible for a clutch of the nation’s most advanced jet fighters, including F-22 Raptors.For several nights, military personnel had reported a mysterious breach of restricted airspace over a stretch of land that has one of the largest concentrations of national-security facilities in the U.S. The show usually starts 45 minutes to an hour after sunset, another senior leader told Kelly.The first drone arrived shortly. Kelly, a career fighter pilot, estimated it was roughly 20 feet long and flying at more than 100 miles an hour, at an altitude of roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feet. Other drones followed, one by one, sounding in the distance like a parade of lawn mowers.
In such a swarm, each drone is a highly mobile, high-tech unit equipped with cameras, sensors, and maybe even arms or tools designed for specific tasks. Algorithms choreograph these vehicles to move and function for a particular purpose. Drones in a swarm are directed to fly in a pattern and communicate on a designated frequency band.
What is particularly troubling about these drones is that the mystery drones used bands are not ones used by hobbyists or commercial interests.
The origins of the drones were unknown, though suspicions were raised that they came from Russia or China. Few believed the flights to be the work of hobbyists.Analysts discovered that the smaller quadcopters didn’t use the usual frequency band available for standard commercial drones, further evidence that hobbyists did not fly the drones.
It is interesting to note a Chinese national was arrested for using drones to spy on a UN Navy shipyard.
On July 8, a Chinese citizen and graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Fengyun Shi, pleaded guilty to violating the Espionage Act for photographing classified U.S. Navy ships with a drone in Virginia.The FBI said Shi, who was arrested in January, photographed Navy vessels at multiple shipyards. A Newport News shipyard was manufacturing next-generation aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. Both contain classified components.A statement of facts accompanying Shi’s plea agreement said he flew the drone only around the shipyards and did not take any photos that did not contain U.S. Navy vessels. He was arrested trying to board a one-way flight to China from California.
Furthermore, two months before the Langley incident, five mysterious drones reportedly crossed into restricted airspace over a federal nuclear weapons experiment site in Nevada.
Four of the drones were detected by the Energy Department’s Nevada National Security Site outside Las Vegas, while the fifth was spotted by employees, according to the Journal. The facility has reportedly since upgraded its detection system, but officials have not determined who was behind the breach.
Interestingly, the Associated Press recently examined how U.S. and Chinese military planners are gearing up to utilize air and sea drone swarms for military operations. It’s the new Cold War, but it features weapons that are easier and cheaper to build than nuclear bombs.
The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage in coordinated battle. A single controller might oversee dozens of drones. Some would scout, others attack. Some would be able to pivot to new objectives in the middle of a mission based on prior programming rather than a direct order.The world’s only AI superpowers are engaged in an arms race for swarming drones that is reminiscent of the Cold War, except drone technology will be far more difficult to contain than nuclear weapons. Because software drives the drones’ swarming abilities, it could be relatively easy and cheap for rogue nations and militants to acquire their own fleets of killer robots.The Pentagon is pushing urgent development of inexpensive, expendable drones as a deterrent against China acting on its territorial claim on Taiwan. Washington says it has no choice but to keep pace with Beijing. Chinese officials say AI-enabled weapons are inevitable so they, too, must have them.
For those of you interested in the military aspects associated with drone swarms and a comparison of US and Chinese capabilities, The Wall Street Journal has a video report.
On a slightly less grim note, and as this is the Year of the Dragon, this video will give you a good idea of China’s drone programming capabilities.
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