But now\u00a0Auterion<\/a>, a US-Swiss firm that works for the US, Britain, Holland and Ukraine, with production lines in Texas and Kyiv, says they\u2019ve solved a big part of that problem. The company\u2019s\u00a0Skynode S<\/a>\u00a0upgrade kit, announced Thursday but already combat tested in Ukraine, is meant to make small drones smart enough to perform some crucial functions on their own.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not picking targets autonomously, because that is a whole new set of ethical considerations,\u201d said\u00a0Lorenz Meier<\/a>, Auterion\u2019s founder and CEO, in a call with Breaking Defense. You designate the target, [that] is a human decision, but everything from there is fully automated. \u2026 The whole terminal guidance is all fully automated and can\u2019t be jammed, doesn\u2019t rely on GPS, and also works on moving targets.\u201d<\/p>\n Autonomous terminal guidance is a complex technical problem that the Russians have already tried \u2014 and, so far,\u00a0seemingly failed<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 to tackle with their own Lancet drone. It matters so much militarily, for both sides, because the trickiest time for attack drones is often the final approach to their targets.<\/p>\n The fundamental physics problem is that small drones can only carry small amounts of explosives, so even a small mistake can mean a miss. But small drones \u2014 at least, ones without Skynode S \u2014 can\u2019t perform precise maneuvers on their own: They need a human pilot flying them by remote control. That means an unskilled, exhausted or just unlucky operator can fumble the strike at the last minute. Or the enemy can force a fumble by jamming the control link, which requires less and less power as the drone gets closer and closer to the target.<\/p>\n To dispense with that human guidance, you need a drone with electronic eyes sharp enough, and a digital brain smart enough, to distinguish the designated target from the background clutter and home in on it autonomously. But while computers have gotten pretty good at identifying static images of cute kittens, puppies and consumer products, they have a harder time with three-dimensional objects, especially when they\u2019re camouflaged, partially hidden behind cover, poorly lit, or moving.<\/p>\n Meier is emphatic that Skynode S has solved this problem well enough to give Ukrainian drones an edge in combat, without needing exquisite sensors or bulky on-board computers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been hard, and there were setbacks, and it was a very intense six months to get to this point,\u201d he told Breaking Defense. \u201c[But] we\u2019ve made sure that we have a really, really good computer vision tracker\u201d that can follow the designated target \u201ceven if it moves, if it turns, if anything changes.\u201d<\/p>\n Open Architecture: The Path To Infinite Upgrades<\/strong><\/p>\n SkyNode S also allows drones to navigate accurately over long distances when GPS is degraded, jammed or otherwise unavailable, Meier said. The same circuit board that runs the target-tracking algorithm can also be linked to jamming-resistant GPS antennas, electromagnetic sensors that triangulate the drone\u2019s position off radio beacons and computer vision algorithms that match the terrain below the drone against high-res satellite maps.<\/p>\n None of this means the drone can identify and choose its own targets, Meier emphasized. That\u2019s a much more complex problem, not only technologically but\u00a0legally and morally<\/a>.<\/p>\n However, the company is working on an electronic warfare upgrade to Skynode S that, instead of using computer vision to track targets, would home in on radio and radar signals. It should be possible to program such an EW drone with a library of distinctive enemy transmissions, then launch it in the general direction of a radar, jammer or communications node with the order to find and kill it.<\/p>\n Such \u201cHoming Anti-Radiation\u201d capabilities have existed in high-end missiles systems since the 1980s, as with the American\u00a0AGM-88 HARM<\/a>. But putting them in much cheaper drones could proliferate them dramatically across the battlefield, at least\u00a0at shorter ranges<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remarkably, all these capabilities run off an electronics card smaller than a human hand, as Meier demonstrated by holding one up during his video call with Breaking Defense. \u201cI have one of these avionics units here, so you see \u2026 it\u2019s ridiculously small.\u201d<\/p>\n These cards are also adaptable enough that they can be installed on drones from multiple manufacturers and run apps developed by\u00a0other companies. This design approach is known as\u00a0Modular Open Systems Architecture<\/a>\u00a0(MOSA), where different companies agreed to common technical standards so their software applications and hardware components can plug-and-play together.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of MOSA for real, in real systems, with real things that deploy,\u201d Meier said. \u201cWe\u2019ve built an app store. [It\u2019s] the Android of drones.\u201d<\/p>\n The openness of the system was put to the test in\u00a0a recent hackathon<\/a>\u00a0in Poland run by the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit. Teams from more than a dozen different companies and universities were able to whip up navigation apps to run atop Auterion\u2019s operating system and field-test them on real drones.<\/p>\n In fact, DIU\u2019s\u00a0Blue sUAS<\/a>\u00a0program \u2014 a curated list of small unmanned air systems approved for military use \u2014 uses Auterion\u00a0open-source software<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0MavLink<\/a>\u00a0communications protocol that\u00a0Meier developed<\/a>\u00a0as a graduate student in Zurich before founding Auterion. That makes it easier for Auterion to work with other companies from many countries.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re working with American drone companies, European drone companies, and Ukrainian drone companies,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re powering systems in DoD inventory, in Dutch inventory, in British inventory.\u201d<\/p>\n When Meier began working on autonomous drones back in 2008, \u201cthat was in a more peaceful world, where I was personally focused more on disaster recovery and urban navigation,\u201d he told Breaking Defense. \u201cBut since then, the world has become a more dangerous place, and the freedoms that we\u2019re taking for granted need to be protected.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a moral obligation to not withhold our technology from defense,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we feel we make the best operating system for drones, it would be the wrong thing to withhold it, even from lethal applications.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/soldier-217x300-1.jpeg\")
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