U(C)AV ontwikkelingen

[Sparkplug]

New $2.2 billion Anglo-French FCAS phase announced

By Beth Stevenson, London | 08 March 2016

France and the UK are set to launch a new project under their Future Combat Air System (FCAS) effort that will see unmanned air vehicle prototypes developed under a newly announced £1.54 billion ($2.19 billion) agreement.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande met in Amiens, France on 3 March, during which they committed funding to build on the programme's two-year £120 million ($170 million) feasibility study phase, that kicked off in November 2014.

The study is expected to conclude in late 2016, and the development of full-scale prototypes is expected to start the following year.

"We are now looking to transition to the next phase in 2017, which will prepare for the full-scale development of unmanned combat air system (UCAS) operational demonstrators by 2025," the governments say.

"This demonstration programme, the most advanced of its kind in Europe, will be centred on a versatile UCAS platform that could serve as the basis for a future operational capability beyond 2030."

The governments intend to invest $2.2 billion in the next stage of the effort and a technical review will be carried out some time around 2020.

"In addition, we will strengthen our collaboration by working together to analyse the future combat air environment, including how manned and unmanned systems might operate together," they add.

The parties involved in the development are split between British and French industry, and include: BAE Systems, Dassault, Finmeccanica Airborne and Space Systems, Rolls-Royce, Snecma/Safran and Thales.


BAE Systems

The two leaders also signed an agreement for France to explore the purchase of the MBDA Dual-Mode Brimstone 2 missile for its Airbus Helicopters Tiger attack rotorcraft.

Brimstone is used by UK forces in Iraq and Syria, and "would offer a valuable upgrade to the French arsenal", according to the UK Ministry of Defence.

The March meeting resulted in Cameron and Hollande signing an agreement to begin a joint concept phase for the Future Cruise/Anti-Ship Weapon programme to develop replacements for the MBDA Scalp/Storm Shadow missiles that both countries operate, plus the Harpoon for the UK and Exocet for France.

This concept phase would lead to a decision on replacements by 2020, and it is planned for an arrangement for this to be agreed on by the end of 2016, and for contracts to possibly be signed by March 2017.

UK defence secretary Michael Fallon also agreed one strategic airlift flight per month, to be provided to support French troops involved in counter-terrorism operations in Africa. The Royal Air Force operates eight Boeing C-17 transports that would fit the role, Flightglobal's Fleets Analyzer database shows.

The UK is also considering involvement in Operation Barkhane, Paris' ongoing anti-insurgency mission in the Sahel, Africa, "the modalities of which are still being discussed", the governments say.

"France is grateful for this commitment and supports all its operational aspects," the joint statement adds.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/new-22-billion-anglo-french-fcas-phase-announced-422866/

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Enhanced MQ-9 carries out maiden flight

By Beth Stevenson, London | 26 February 2016

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has carried out the maiden flight of an enhanced endurance variant of its MQ-9 Reaper unmanned air vehicle at its Palmdale, California facility.

Conducted on 18 February, the test flight of the extended range (ER) "Long Wing" MQ-9 saw the UAV fly at 7,500ft and carry out a series of airworthiness manoeuvres. The company says a full test programme will take place to declare the type operationally capable.

The test vehicle was retrofitted with a 4m (13ft) longer wing than the MQ-9 version, at 24m, with an increased internal fuel capacity and additional hardpoints. The wings also have provisions for de-icing and integrated low- and high-band radio-frequency antennas.

The new version of the medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV will be able to fly for 40h, up from the 27h endurance of the previous system.

The US Air Force has fielded an interim retrofitted Block 5 model with an extended range capability that includes auxiliary external fuel tanks and new wings, but General Atomics is looking towards a production variant featuring the longer wings and increased internal fuel capability as a standard that could be certified to fly in national airspace.

The wing has been designed to conform with NATO's airworthiness standard for UAVs and includes lightning and bird strike protection, non-destructive testing, and advanced composite and adhesive materials for extreme environments, General Atomics co-owner Linden Blue says.

The longer wings are the first elements for the certifiable development project, and the first production example is expected in early 2018.


US Air Force

Further hardware and software upgrades planned for the certifiable MQ-9 will include sense-and-avoid capability, improved structural fatigue and damage tolerance, more robust flight control software, and enhancements allowing operations in adverse weather, the company says. Other improvements include short-field take-off and landing capability and spoilers on the wings which enable precision automatic landings.

Under its Protector programme, the UK will acquire 20 new UAVs to replace its 10 Block 1 Reapers. It is expected to choose either the Block 5 currently in production or wait for the ER version.

Another recent success for the MQ-9 programme was a contract award from Spain for the delivery of four Block 5 Reapers, plus two ground control stations.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/enhanced-mq-9-carries-out-maiden-flight-422452/

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Northrop preparing German Euro Hawk to fly again

By James Drew, Washington DC | 26 February 2016

The Northrop Grumman-built Euro Hawk unmanned air vehicle will fly again after the German air force decided to resume testing of the aircraft and its Airbus Defence & Space signals intelligence (SIGINT) payload.

Since the cancellation of Euro Hawk in May 2013, Germany's one RQ-4 Global Hawk-derived full-scale demonstrator has been in storage at Manching Air Base. Plans hatched last year will see testing resume as Germany looks to field the SIGINT payload, perhaps on an alternative platform.

"Working with our German partners, we are returning our full-scale demonstrator to flight status and we continue to negotiate with the German Air Force to prove out that [Airbus] payload that we're currently under contract with," says Northrop Global Hawk chief Mick Jaggers. "I have a crew in Manching right now putting that aircraft back into flight status."


Northrop Grumman

Euro Hawk development began in 2000, but the programme was shuttered because of concerns about airworthiness and unmanned aircraft integration in European airspace.

Early-model Global Hawks do not have a weather radar or anti-icing systems, and cannot automatically detect and avoid other aircraft when transiting to their operating altitudes of 60,000ft.

Germany is considering several options for hosting the Airbus-developed electronic and communications intelligence sensor, which began flight testing in January 2013 before being truncated.

One option is the Global Hawk-derived MQ-4C Triton – being built for the US Navy and Australia – or perhaps the same Global Hawk type being delivered to NATO for its Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) programme. Another option is to host the payload on a manned business jet aircraft.

Jaggers says airspace integration is not as problematic as it once was for the Global Hawk type.

"We've been in a couple of demos in the European theatre, including Unified Vision in 2014 and Trident Juncture in 2015," he says. "When you look at the airspace that was opened for us, we've been through the entire European airspace right now."

Three "Q-4" types will eventually be hosted in Europe at Sigonella Air Base in Italy: the US Air Force and NATO Global Hawks and MQ-4C Triton. The US military has already begun developing sense-and-avoid technologies and adverse weather modifications for its RQ-4s.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/northrop-preparing-german-euro-hawk-to-fly-again-422449/

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Singapore Airshow 2016: USN set to debut enhanced MQ-8B Fire Scout UAS aboard Littoral Combat Ship

Kelvin Wong, Singapore - IHS Jane's International Defence Review | 15 February 2016


The US Navy's MQ-8B Fire Scout made its maiden flight with the AN/ZPY-4(V)1 surveillance radar at NAS Patuxent River's Webster Field Annex, Maryland, on 16 June 2014. Source: Northrop Grumman

Key Points
• The US Navy is set to field an improved MQ-8B Fire Scout unmanned aerial system aboard the Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado in June 2016.
• The MQ-8B UAS is equipped with the newly installed Telephonics X-band RDR-1700B+ maritime surveillance radar.

The US Navy (USN) is nearly ready to commence deployment of a radar-equipped Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system (UAS) aboard the Littoral Combat Ship USS Coronado (LCS 4) from June 2016, an official from Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) told IHS Jane's .

According to Captain Jeffrey Dodge, Multi-Mission Tactical UAS programme manager at NAVAIR, the MQ-8B has been fitted with the Telephonics X-band RDR-1700B+ multimode maritime surveillance radar which is known in USN service as the AN/ZPY-4(V)1.

The crew of Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC)-23 "Wildcards" will be the first USN composite helicopter squadron to operate the enhanced MQ-8B UAS from Coronado in combination with an embarked MH-60S naval helicopter. Pre-deployment training with an under way period for the detachment is expected to commence in March 2016.

"One of the things that we want to use the Fire Scout for is to enhance maritime situational awareness in the sea and airspace around the ship, and persistence is important because you want to keep track of how things change," Capt Dodge said. "Previous to this we were working with an [electro-optical infrared] EO/IR package, and even though we added some algorithms that helped with the detection of targets on the video feed there is still a limit on the field of view that you can get out of it, so we were looking at only a little bit of that sea or airspace at any given time."

"With the radar we are going to open up a 180° aperture and be able to look out at pretty [long] ranges and see it all at once, and that in co-ordination with [built-in] automatic identification system (AIS) to identify merchant shipping will give us a much better ability to be aware of what's going on [before employing] the EO/IR package to visually identify what we are picking up with the radar," he added.

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http://www.janes.com/article/58024/singapore-airshow-2016-usn-set-to-debut-enhanced-mq-8b-fire-scout-uas-aboard-littoral-combat-ship

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SINGAPORE: New UAV partnership ups Skeldar appeal

Recently established unmanned air vehicle joint venture UMS Skeldar believes it will be able to boost the competitiveness of the Saab Skeldar unmanned helicopter over rival systems.

In December it was announced that UMS and Saab's UAV division would jointly promote Skeldar through the new business, alongside the former's range of rotary- and fixed-wing platforms, which head of business development David Willems says will enhance the appeal of the family of aircraft.

Willems says that the pricing structure will be modified for Skeldar, which will "put us in a very competitive bracket". Systems with a similar capability to Skeldar include the Schiebel Camcopter and CybAero Apid UAVs.

UMS Skeldar offers the 3h-endurance R350 rotary-wing UAV in addition to Skeldar and the F330 and F720 fixed-wing designs.

The R350 has seen success in Europe, while the fixed-wing models have been used in the Middle East, Willems says.

It will also look to provide UAVs on a service basis and for training, as "budgets are shrinking everywhere, and services contracts are a good way to target the market", Willems adds.

The company announced during the show that it will begin to provide training in Indonesia, and previous successes include offering data services to Singapore's police force.

In addition, the joint venture will pursue military opportunities, says Willems. "There are some big navy tenders in Asia and Europe and we are involved in the tenders right now," he says.

The R350 is also being pitched to a government agency in China, a market that the Apid UAV has seen success in.

Work is underway to integrate Skeldar into the common ground control station used by the other three systems, Willems says.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/singapore-new-uav-partnership-ups-skeldar-appeal-421963/

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UCLASS reborn as US Navy spy-tanker

By James Drew, Washington DC | 11 February 2016

The US Navy's long-running attempt to field a carrier-based unmanned combat aircraft has taken another turn, morphing from a surveillance and strike aircraft into a reconnaissance and aerial refuelling drone with "limited strike capability".

The about-turn follows a top-level review and restructuring of the now-defunct unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike (UCLASS) project, with the service's latest budget instead funding the RAQ-25 CBARS, or carrier-based aerial refuelling system.

According to budget documents, $1.1 billion has been committed to UCLASS through fiscal 2016, supporting carrier-based demonstrations of the Northrop Grumman X-47B and other activities. About $435 million was enacted by Congress for 2016, but CBARS takes form with just $89 million in the fiscal 2017 budget submission.

Total funding for CBARS is $2.2 billion through 2021 and a competition and downselect of an air vehicle provide has been delayed by approximately one year to 2017 compared to the discarded UCLASS plan. Northrop, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems are vying to build the flying gas station, which is expected to reduce dependence on Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets for aerial refuelling.

"The real value of this restructure is that it incrementally gets at the manned-unmanned interface and operation on the carrier deck and in the air wing by the mid-2020s," says Rear Adm William Lescher, navy deputy assistant secretary for budget. "The mission of tanking is going to be critical to making the air wing more effective and projecting power forward, but the long-endurance [surveillance and targeting] is going to be critical as well. The limited strike function adds value."


Flightglobal

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/uclass-reborn-as-us-navy-spy-tanker-421844/

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DOD official: World faces 'Terminator conundrum' on AI weapons

By James Drew, Washington DC | 22 January 2016

The US military faces a "Terminator conundrum" when it comes to artificially intelligent killing machines, including armed UAVs and loitering munitions.

The Department of Defense (DOD) does not field such weapons today, says one senior military official – but the technology is nevertheless close at hand, and other nations might press forward.

Speaking at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC today, vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen Paul Selva says there should be a national and global debate on "AI" weapons for air, land, sea and undersea combat.

"We have proven that we can build and field unmanned underwater vehicles, unmanned surface vessels, unmanned wheeled vehicles, and remotely piloted air vehicles," he says. "We can actually build 'autonomous' vehicles in every one of those categories.

"That gets us to the cusp of a question about whether or not we are willing to have unmanned autonomous systems that can launch on an enemy. What happens when that thing can inflict mortal harm and is empowered by artificial intelligence?"


Northrop Grumman X-47B is a proposed carrier-based UAV that would be armed and largely autonomous, but the human operator would make any decision to employ weapons.
US Navy

Selva says the technology is already here, with rudimentary AI systems monitoring day-to-day bank transactions and mining large volumes of data. But there are ethical, political and laws-of-war questions that must be answered before these types of weapons enter combat, he says.

"I call it 'the Terminator conundrum'," he says. "That's a debate we need to have, I would argue nationally and internationally, to answer if we as humans want to cross that line."

The US government has initiated and then cancelled several UAV and missile programmes that would have autonomously identified and destroyed targets based on "hard-coded" decision metrics.

"They are robotic, but not intelligent. There is a significant difference," Selva says, adding that true AI machines could study targets and track them, but the final decision to launch weapons should remain with humans. "That's about as far as I'm willing to go at this point," he says.

High-profile technologists such as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have come out against AI weapons, saying they could spell disaster for humanity.

Concerns about armed robots entered popular culture with The Terminator movie in 1984, but became a more pressing worry when the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-1 Predator UAV was armed with the AGM-114 Hellfire missile in 2002.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/dod-official-world-faces-terminator-conundrum-on-421094/

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Boeing's Unmanned Little Bird nears completion of flight trials

Gareth Jennings, London - IHS Jane's Defence Weekly | 10 January 2016


Boeing is conducting final flight trials of its MD 500-based H-6U Unmanned Little Bird that it expects to conclude in mid-2016. Source: Boeing

Boeing expects to conclude flight trials of its optionally piloted H-6U Unmanned Little Bird (ULB) later this year, a company spokesperson told IHS Jane's on 11 January.

The H-6U, which is an MD 500 Little Bird observation and scout platform fitted with Boeing's Optionally Piloted Vehicle kit, is currently conducting its final flight trials, the company said in a statement. No further details as to the nature of the trials or the company's plans for the platform once the trials are concluded in mid-2016 were disclosed.

"The MD 500 helicopter, with the Optionally Piloted Vehicle kit installed on it, is currently undergoing flight testing. We expect flight tests to be completed in mid-2016," IHS Jane's was told in response to a question on the status of the programme.

Boeing has two ULB helicopters at its Mesa facility in Arizona that it is using on multiple US and international customer technology demonstration programmes, such as automated shipboard launch/recovery, autonomous cargo delivery system, cyber attack resistance, and development of advanced flight control system prototyping. They are also being tested for unmanned kits to potentially convert a variety of helicopters to optionally piloted platforms.

Of all the potential international requirements for unmanned/optionally piloted MD 500 technology, arguably none are as defined or advanced as those of South Korea. Boeing was due to undertake demonstration flights of the ULB for South Korea in late 2015, but it has not said if this has yet happened (these latest unmanned flight trials were originally scheduled to have taken place before the end of 2014 but were understood to have been delayed by certification and clearance issues).

Boeing has previously conducted a demonstration flight of the ULB helicopter for the Republic of Korea Army (RoKA) in the United States in 2012, and in 2013 a memorandum of understanding was signed with Korea Air Aerospace Division (KAL-ASD) to convert an undisclosed number of the RoKA's MD 500 helicopters into unmanned platforms.

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http://www.janes.com/article/57095/boeing-s-unmanned-little-bird-nears-completion-of-flight-trials

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Turks UCAV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqRj59K9zPk

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Northrop Grumman wins DARPA TERN programme

By Stephen Trimble, Washington DC | 28 December 2015

Northrop Grumman will demonstrate that an MQ-9 Reaper-sized unmanned air vehicle (UAV) can operate at sea from ships smaller than an aircraft carrier under a $93 million contract awarded on 24 December.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) eliminated AeroVironment last September as Northrop's only remaining competitor for the Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node (TERN) programme. But Northrop's role in designing, developing and demonstrating the medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV was not confirmed until DARPA announced the contract award.

The terms of the contract require Northrop to contribute $39 million, raising the overall cost of the demonstration programme to $132 million.


DARPA

On 11 December, Northrop revealed a model of the company's secretive design to a handful of journalists touring the company's El Segundo, California, research and manufacturing facilities. The model showed Northrop had selected a flying-wing tailsitter design with a nose-mounted counter-rotating propeller system.

The 12.2m (40ft)-span vehicle appeared reminiscent of the tail-sitting Lockheed XFV-1 and Convair XFY-1 Pogo fighters research projects of the 1950s. But Northrop's TERN differed in design with the absence of a fuselage and a much larger set of counter-rotating propellers that measured as much as one-third of the wingspan.

The model also showed that Northrop envisioned mounting weapons and other stores externally on hard points under the wing.

DARPA launched the TERN programme to solve a capability problem for the US Navy. The service regularly operates small, tactical unmanned air systems, such as the Boeing/Insitu Integrator from frigate-class ships, using a catapult to launch the aircraft and a crane to recover it. But carrying payloads larger than about 30kg required using an unmanned helicopter, such as the Northrop MQ-8C Fire Scout, which can carry heavier loads but lacks the range and endurance of a General Atomics Aeronautics Systems MQ-9.

The TERN attempts to bridge that gap with a vehicle that can carry a 272kg payload on missions up to 900nm (1,670km).

The Phase III contract awarded to Northrop on 24 December requires the company to build a demonstrator, perform ground testing and demonstrate the aircraft at sea.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/northrop-grumman-wins-darpa-tern-programme-420385/

[Sparkplug]

USA won't fly troops into battle aboard pilotless helicopters

By James Drew, Washington DC | 22 December 2015

The US Army has no plans to ferry troops into war zones aboard unmanned helicopters, but will push autonomous and remote-controlled flight technology for cargo delivery, although it's not a near-term priority, service officials say.

Just as the US Air Force and Navy are grappling with the idea of sending unmanned fighter jets into battle, the army faces similar ingrained preconceptions about the role of pilots in combat.

"The questions about unmanned helicopters with crews in the back; there's a level of trust there we won't break," the army's capability manager for unmanned aircraft systems Col Paul Cravey tells Flightglobal in an interview. "We're not putting soldiers in the back of helicopters without our aviators flying in the front."

Unmanned helicopters are often touted as the ideal solution for breaking into hostile territory without risking the lives of aircrews, but these concepts do not extend to rescuing or transporting soldiers, the army claims.


Sikorsky's UH-60A "Autonomous Hawk" was introduced in 2013.
Lockheed Martin Sikorsky

Several companies including Boeing and Sikorsky have at one time or another demonstrated unmanned helicopter technologies, with Boeing producing the H-6U "Unmanned Little Bird" and Sikorsky creating an optionally-piloted UH-60A "Black Hawk" based on its Matrix and Mural autonomy programmes.

The Marine Corps and Navy are developing similar software and hardware through their Lockheed/Kaman K-MAX and Northrop Grumman MQ-8B/C Fire Scout programmes, with the latter based on the Schweizer 333 and Bell 407 platforms.

Cravey says with limited resources, opportunities to bring unmanned helicopters online for cargo resupply and incorporate them into future strategies and operating concepts are limited. In its 2010-2035 roadmap for UAS, the army imagined UAVs providing about 25% of aerial logistical resupply in the "mid-term".

One limiting technology is autonomous landing, which the Office of Naval Research is trying to overcome through its Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS), demonstrated on the Little Bird and K-MAX.

"It has not raised to the level of priority where we're looking at that," Cravey says. The focus right now is on rolling out the current strategy, he says, which prioritises manned-unmanned teaming with the Boeing AH-64 Apache for armed aerial scout missions, plus upgrading and adding new weapons to already-fielded fixed-wing UAVs.

The army's new chief of staff Gen Mark Milley last week expressed strong interest in convoys of autonomous ground vehicle for cargo resupply, delivering "water, beans and bullets" to troops.

He says pilotless helicopters are less technologically challenging because of the complex terrain those ground vehicles must navigate, but the bigger challenge for rotorcraft is perhaps institutional.

"We might wait for the air force to go first; see how their pilots fare with it," he quipped.

In terms of swarms of small UAVs for resupply of smaller ammunition and medical packs, Cravey isn't sold on that technology. "We haven't been handed that just yet," he says, pointing instead to advances in nanotechnology for peeking around corners to spot indoor threats, as well as new sensors for the AeroVironment Raven and Puma.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usa-wont-fly-troops-into-battle-aboard-pilotless-he-420306/

[dudge]

Third Series of Test Flights Completed by All-British UCAV
by Chris Pocock
- December 10, 2015, 7:29 AM

The Taranis UCAV demonstrator that has been produced by a UK industry-government partnership completed a third and final flight-test campaign last month. AIN understands that a key objective was to prove a low radar cross-section measurement but—as usual—program officials remain tight-lipped. Meanwhile, the Anglo-French study of a Future Combat Air System (FCAS) that could lead to an operational UCAV is entering its second and final year. But a senior participant noted that national caveats on the sharing of sensitive technology apply, evidently limiting the scope of the study.

Nigel Whitehead, group managing director of programs and support, BAE Systems, said that the Taranis program had "met all its test objectives. It's been a real triumph, and we've learned a lot on the way." Speaking to an audience of senior aerospace and defense officials at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, Whitehead said that the anticipated mission profile for a UCAV had been fully demonstrated. Program officials described that profile in a mid-2014 briefing. Whitehead listed the main achievements of the program as the development of a fly-by-wire system for a highly unstable configuration; the many embedded sensors that that replace data probes and pitot tubes to measure static pressure distribution; the integration of mission sensors, powerplant and communications in a stealthy platform; and the high-integrity safety-critical systems.

Similar achievements are being demonstrated in the pan-European Neuron program, which is being led by France. Whitehead said that the French probably had a similar operational requirement for a UCAS, making them "a sensible potential partner." But when asked whether "firewalls" are inhibiting the FCAS study, he said the two sides were "not yet at the point of giving away any crown jewels. Ultimately, we've got to pool. At the moment, we're gaining confidence [in each other]. We're at mid-dance."
Copyright ©2015 The Convention News Company, Inc.
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2015-12-10/third-series-test-flights-completed-all-british-ucav

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Software regulation challenges UCAV proliferation control

By Beth Stevenson, Brussels | 13 November 2015

The introduction of international laws for a future generation of unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) hinges on the regulation of software, which can effectively be used to turn a regular aerial system into an autonomous weapon.

Autonomous weapon systems – those that once deployed would select and counter targets without any further human interaction – are a hot topic within organisations such as the UN. And while they arguably do not yet exist, a number of nations are only small steps away from developing them.

The regulation of the software used to give systems this control is incredibly difficult, and accountability of who is responsible for these weapons' deployment is a challenge, Nicholas Marsh, research fellow at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo, told the EU Non-Proliferation Consortium conference in Brussels.

"Prohibiting or regulating weapons is easier – they are usually a physical object that can be identified and monitored," he said. "When we're looking at the difference between autonomous weapons or an earlier generation of weapons, the difference between them is in software."


The Harop loitering munition
Israel Aerospace Systems

Israel manufactures, uses and exports loitering munitions, while the US Navy and Northrop Grumman are developing the X-47B UCAV demonstrator, and the UK Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems the Taranis UCAV.

While none of these are promoted as being fully autonomous capabilities, a software change is all that would be required to make them so. This means that systems could be exported legally, but then modified to change them when in-country, leading to their proliferation.

"You can update software instantly, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to share code that is driving the machine without revealing that technical specifications of that weapon," Marsh said. "So if you are looking at people trying to inspect the software inside a potential lethal autonomous weapon, that is going to pose a very difficult problem for states because they'll want to keep the technical specifications secret."

Marsh added that while enforcing regulation is going to be difficult, it is not impossible. However, it will be problematic to move from a campaign for such laws to looking at what regulation will look like.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/software-regulation-challenges-ucav-proliferation-co-419071/

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