Science is subtly transforming our nation's defence capabilities, giving our future-focused strategists more options to meet the changing demands of an often unpredictable world.
In a significant breakthrough for Australia's defence strategy, and a world first to boot, an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operated by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), has achieved autonomous flight.
DSTO scientists are also researching and designing programs for groups, or swarms, of small, inexpensive UAVs that may become part of Australia's future defence arsenal.
Recently, a Codarra 'Avatar' UAV was guided by software that directed the aircraft's autopilot in flightpath selection during a short mission at the Australian Army's Graytown range near Melbourne.
Though only of short duration and involving simple choices, this 'UAV first' demonstrated in-flight intelligent agent control of the aircraft and fully autonomous mission selection capabilities.
DSTO Flight Systems Research Leader, David Graham, said while the task achieved by the UAV, "was simple", he pointed out that it was the first step in accomplishing far more complex autonomous flight control.
"The hard part was probably the integration of all the components," David said. "The achievement means that eventually one person would be able to manage many UAVs, rather than have several people managing the operation of one UAV. Flight-testing will start next year on multiple UAV teams.
In other developments, DSTO mathematician Alex Ryan is part of a research team using advanced mathematics and state-of-the-art computing to design 'collective intelligence' for swarms of UAVs.
Like a plague of locusts or a swarm of killer bees, these small expendable unmanned aircraft could be used for surveillance of possible enemy activity, as small weapons carriers, or to investigate areas too dangerous for humans.
"We're working at the edge of chaos," says Alex. "There's a fine line between systems that are too ordered and stagnate; or systems that are too chaotic and collapse into total disorder.
"Swarm behaviour as such is not what we are after," he says. "Swarms -- like the notorious killer bees -- concentrate on attacking a single enemy in vast numbers. Our aim is rather to develop an intelligent and communicating network.
"Each 'agent' in the network has its own utility function while there is an over-arching utility function for the whole system. It is vital that the agents don't work at cross-purposes, and they must each be able to react to unexpected circumstances."
Alex says that many small, simple and inexpensive UAVs, costing less than $20,000 each, are a more practical answer than larger, more sophisticated vehicles costing millions of dollars.
He says that much work needs to be done to reduce the imbalance between unmanned vehicles and the people who control them. "At present, each unmanned aircraft needs a ground crew of about thirty people," he says.
Australia too poses its own special problems, as imported technology may be quite unsuitable for our topography. "We are in a 'littoral' region, with miles of coastline and chains of islands. And we have a vast interior. These geographical features make quite special demands on the design of unmanned aerial vehicles," Alex adds.
