AI-enabled Drone Swarms
Armed forces of several countries are working to realize AI-enabled swarming capability in drones. This effort is inspired by a biological concept, called ‘Swarm intelligence’ that is found in social insects like ants, bees, and even birds who fly in groups.
Swarm Intelligence entails a group of simple individual intelligences coordinating together to act as a single, collective intelligence with capabilities exceeding that of the individuals. In a swarm, there is no leader and every member has freedom to act individually based on local rules but all members must adhere to three basic principles: 1. Separate (maintain a certain distance between each other); 2. Align (every one moves towards the destination); and 3. Cohere (try to stay together).
For instance, in a flock of birds flying in a formation, one bird can move to dodge an obstacle in front of it, and then return to formation. The entire flock need not move to avoid an obstacle that is in front of a single bird.
Likewise, in a drone swarm, a drone operator need not control every movement of the swarm, let alone every drone within that swarm. All the drone operator needs to do is dispatch the swarm where it is required, and allow the swarm intelligence to take over to accomplish the mission objective.
A US Army study in 2018 suggested that swarming could increase the lethality of attack drones by atleast 50% while also decreasing their losses from defensive fire by 50%. Experts suggest that swarm Intelligence could enable drones to coordinate their target selection, approach and even individual angle of attack to carry out an ‘omnidirectional’ assault, wherein, several drones can strike a single target from multiple angles.
Now, it is critical to highlight here that swarms in nature generally consist of one type of a creature, wherease a swarm of drones can comprise different types working together. So, the unarmed drones can gather intelligence from the field to inform the armed drones on where best to strike.
Furthermore, members of the drone swarm can be armed with different types of weapons like guns, bombs, and missiles, enabling the swarm to strike several types of targets in a particular area, such as vehicles, bunkers and personnel, in the most efficient way possible.
Domestic Security Risks Of AI-enabled Drones
The most profound impact of this ongoing AI revolution in drone warfare is going to be experienced by the mankind in the urban centres of the world that have long been a favourite target of terrorist groups like Daesh (or Islamic State) and Al-Qaeda, etc.
Non-state actors are known to have been using small drones since the mid-2010s, and while initially, they relied on drones primarily for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, in recent years, they have pioneered the use of drones for kinetic strikes as well.
A prominent instance of this in recent years is Hamas’ use of cheap FPV drones and loitering munitions to make way for its massive, deadly invasion of Israel in October 2023. Using quadcopters armed with small explosives, Hamas was able to neutralize several major Israeli comm towers and border posts, as well as multiple Iron Done weapon platforms.
Now, let us come to the threat to urban centres. The West has not seen a successful terrorist attack directly plotted and executed by a terror group like ISIS or Al-Qaeda since May 2017. The latest such attack was experienced in Russia in March at the Crocus City Hall concert venue in Moscow, which killed over 130 people and injured hundreds more. It was planned and executed by ISIS-Khorasan or ISIS-K (ISIS’ South Asia branch), marking the first successful attack by ISIS-K in Russia and also its first mass casualty attack outside of its traditional area of operations in South Asia.
What is important, though, is the fact that while North America and Western Europe have not seen a successful mass casualty attack directed by a foreign terrorist organisation, they have been grappling with the problem of lone wolf attacks by homegrown extremists. These lone wolf attacks lack the kind of sophistication in preparation and execution that is observed in attacks that are directed by a terror organisation, and therefore result in lower number of casualties. However, this could soon change.
The advent of AI-enabled drones could bridge the gap between the scale of casualties observed in lone wolf attacks and the attacks directed by a terror group. In fact, even without the AI, terror groups could wreak havoc if they employ the same drone capabilities seen on Ukrainian battlefield in their attacks on cities.
Most importantly, this is very easy to do, as drones have gone from being a niche product to become a mainstream consumer electronics product, thanks to China’s DJI, or Da-Jiang Innovations, the biggest consumer drone maker on the planet that commands roughly 70% of the global drone market, selling its products in more than 100 countries. This means that even lone wolves could leverage the use of drones to increase the casualty count of their attacks.
As stated before, there are cheap AI software downloads available for less than US$ 50 for small and medium-sized commercial drones. So, even a single person with little assistance from terror groups in terms of resources and tactics, can pull off a deadly terror attack in crowded places by just launching an AI-enabled drone from far-off location, thereby making it difficult to even catch the perpetrator.
Also, these cheap AI softwares offer features like object detection, facial recognition and tracking as well as human pose detection, which means they can be used by non-state actors for high value targeting (HVT) as well.
Tanmay Kadam is a geopolitical observer based in India. He has experience working as a Defense and International Affairs journalist for EurAsian Times. He can be contacted at tanmaykadam700@gmail.com.
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References
- Tyler Rogoway, Drone Warfare’s Terrifying AI-Enabled Next Step Is Imminent, The War Zone, February 5, 2024 ↩︎
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