The Ministry of Defence has showcased current and next-generation unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

The event was held as part of National Science and Engineering Week - an annual event celebrating science, engineering and technology - and to give manufacturers the chance to show off some of their creations.

Military use of UAVs has been growing fast. Twenty years ago, they were a bonus item for the armed forces, now they are seen as an essential part of the modern warrior's arsenal.

UAVs are mainly used for reconnaissance, although some of the larger models can also drop weapons.

On show was equipment currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as prototypes and models of new technology that could be in service in the next few years.

The role of unmanned vehicles was to do "dull, dirty, and dangerous work and lessen the risk to the troops," said General Andrew Figgures, the officer in charge of MoD procurement, at the event..

T-HAWK MICRO AIR VEHICLE

Built by Honeywell, this 8kg hovering air vehicle carries a regular and night vision camera, enabling troops to get a stable eye-in-the-sky.

The device, with a price tag of $250,000 (£180,000) is already in use with the US Navy and is currently on trial with British forces and the US 25th Infantry Division in Iraq.

Speaking to the BBC, Adrian Harding from Honeywell, said the device was almost unique in the market.

"Unlike most other UAVs, which have to make numerous passes over a target, we can hover overhead and have constant eyes on the ground," he said.

WATCHKEEPER

Thales' UAV is already in active service in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike many UAVs, Watchkeeper does not need to be "flown" by an operator. The device is autonomous, choosing the best flight path to get to a destination set by an operator.

Speaking to the BBC, Sergeant David Alexander - serving with the 32 Regiment, Royal Artillery - said that the Watchkeeper had already helped save lives.

"It's easy to operate. Really easy. We have two-man teams, one who directs where the aircraft needs to go, and the other who monitors the images coming in.

"It's main use is spotting possible IED [improvised explosive devices] by looking for disturbed soil, wires or possible enemy combatants.

"The work is really satisfying as you help save lives."

MQ-9 REAPER

The successor to the well known Predator UAV, the Reaper gives the armed forces a larger, faster aircraft with a greater payload.

Originally called Predator B, the aircraft has been designed to perform high-altitude surveillance, reconnaissance and so-called hunter-killer missions.

While the Predator could operate up to an altitude of 25,000ft (7620m) and a speed of 120mph (193kph), Reaper can go up to 50,000 feet at speeds of over 240 mph. It can also carry a weapon payload in excess of 1.3 tonnes.

The Reaper is already in service with the RAF and USAF and the developers are working on further modifications.

DESERT HAWK III

Another UAV, but much smaller than Reaper, Desert Hawk III is a hand-launched drone that is used by troops to carry out surveillance. The device fits inside a backpack carried by troops.

Developed by Lockheed Martin, the UAV has a range of up to 15km and can be in the air for up to 90 minutes.

At present, an operator controls the Desert Hawk III from a laptop and transmitter, although the developers are working on a customised and more durable control system.

CASPER 250

British firms are also working on small UAVs that can be carried in a backpack.

Birmingham-based Sonic Communications has built the Casper 250 Man-pack, a battery-powered UAV that is ready for launched within 20 minutes of being unpacked.

The developer's say the device becomes "silent and invisible" once it reaches 100m, can stay airborne for more than 90 minutes and has a range of 12 miles.

Casper has two interchangeable cameras, for night or day use, and can transmit the images either directly to the ground control station or to a command and control centre.

TARANIS & MANTIS

BAE Systems is working on two very different UAVs.

Mantis is a large pilotless aircraft, with a wingspan of 22m, can stay airborne for more than 24 hours and operate at more than 40,000 feet.

Speaking to the BBC, BAE's head of communications, Adam Morrison, said the Mantis could survey or patrol an area with great accuracy.

"Most UAVs are controlled on the ground, even if that control is a bunker somewhere in the US. Because of the human element, you're never going to get a precise and regular course over time.

"With Mantis, you can cover an area with almost regular monotony, which means not only constant coverage, but you can spot if anything in that area has changed.

"You could also use it for maritime patrol and with the autonomous nature of the plane, all you need to tell it is which airfield it takes off and lands at, the length of runway and off it goes."

The other UAV it is working on - Taranis - is very different. The £124m, four year project to develop it hopes to create an unmanned, stealth, deep-strike aircraft as part of the Government's strategic unmanned air vehicle experiment.

Initial ground trials are scheduled for late 2009, with a maiden flight scheduled for 2010.

[By Daniel Emery Technology reporter, BBC News]

A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.

This personal robot plugs itself in when it needs a charge. Servant now, master later?

Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.

Their concern is that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.

As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients to simulate empathy, and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence.

While the computer scientists agreed that we are a long way from Hal, the computer that took over the spaceship in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” they said there was legitimate concern that technological progress would transform the work force by destroying a widening range of jobs, as well as force humans to learn to live with machines that increasingly copy human behaviors.

The researchers — leading computer scientists, artificial intelligence researchers and roboticists who met at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Monterey Bay in California — generally discounted the possibility of highly centralized superintelligences and the idea that intelligence might spring spontaneously from the Internet. But they agreed that robots that can kill autonomously are either already here or will be soon.

They focused particular attention on the specter that criminals could exploit artificial intelligence systems as soon as they were developed. What could a criminal do with a speech synthesis system that could masquerade as a human being? What happens if artificial intelligence technology is used to mine personal information from smart phones?

The researchers also discussed possible threats to human jobs, like self-driving cars, software-based personal assistants and service robots in the home. Just last month, a service robot developed by Willow Garage in Silicon Valley proved it could navigate the real world.

A report from the conference, which took place in private on Feb. 25, is to be issued later this year. Some attendees discussed the meeting for the first time with other scientists this month and in interviews.

The conference was organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and in choosing Asilomar for the discussions, the group purposefully evoked a landmark event in the history of science. In 1975, the world’s leading biologists also met at Asilomar to discuss the new ability to reshape life by swapping genetic material among organisms. Concerned about possible biohazards and ethical questions, scientists had halted certain experiments. The conference led to guidelines for recombinant DNA research, enabling experimentation to continue.

The meeting on the future of artificial intelligence was organized by Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft researcher who is now president of the association.

Dr. Horvitz said he believed computer scientists must respond to the notions of superintelligent machines and artificial intelligence systems run amok.

The idea of an “intelligence explosion” in which smart machines would design even more intelligent machines was proposed by the mathematician I. J. Good in 1965. Later, in lectures and science fiction novels, the computer scientist Vernor Vinge popularized the notion of a moment when humans will create smarter-than-human machines, causing such rapid change that the “human era will be ended.” He called this shift the Singularity.

This vision, embraced in movies and literature, is seen as plausible and unnerving by some scientists like William Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Other technologists, notably Raymond Kurzweil, have extolled the coming of ultrasmart machines, saying they will offer huge advances in life extension and wealth creation.

“Something new has taken place in the past five to eight years,” Dr. Horvitz said. “Technologists are replacing religion, and their ideas are resonating in some ways with the same idea of the Rapture.”

The Kurzweil version of technological utopia has captured imaginations in Silicon Valley. This summer an organization called the Singularity University began offering courses to prepare a “cadre” to shape the advances and help society cope with the ramifications.

“My sense was that sooner or later we would have to make some sort of statement or assessment, given the rising voice of the technorati and people very concerned about the rise of intelligent machines,” Dr. Horvitz said.

The A.A.A.I. report will try to assess the possibility of “the loss of human control of computer-based intelligences.” It will also grapple, Dr. Horvitz said, with socioeconomic, legal and ethical issues, as well as probable changes in human-computer relationships. How would it be, for example, to relate to a machine that is as intelligent as your spouse?

Dr. Horvitz said the panel was looking for ways to guide research so that technology improved society rather than moved it toward a technological catastrophe. Some research might, for instance, be conducted in a high-security laboratory.

The meeting on artificial intelligence could be pivotal to the future of the field. Paul Berg, who was the organizer of the 1975 Asilomar meeting and received a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1980, said it was important for scientific communities to engage the public before alarm and opposition becomes unshakable.

“If you wait too long and the sides become entrenched like with G.M.O.,” he said, referring to genetically modified foods, “then it is very difficult. It’s too complex, and people talk right past each other.”

Tom Mitchell, a professor of artificial intelligence and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, said the February meeting had changed his thinking. “I went in very optimistic about the future of A.I. and thinking that Bill Joy and Ray Kurzweil were far off in their predictions,” he said. But, he added, “The meeting made me want to be more outspoken about these issues and in particular be outspoken about the vast amounts of data collected about our personal lives.”

Despite his concerns, Dr. Horvitz said he was hopeful that artificial intelligence research would benefit humans, and perhaps even compensate for human failings. He recently demonstrated a voice-based system that he designed to ask patients about their symptoms and to respond with empathy. When a mother said her child was having diarrhea, the face on the screen said, “Oh no, sorry to hear that.”

A physician told him afterward that it was wonderful that the system responded to human emotion. “That’s a great idea,” Dr. Horvitz said he was told. “I have no tim e for that.”

[Source: nytimes.com]