AI-enabled war drones the new weapon for Ukraine
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STORY: Ukraine start ups are developing Artificial Intelligence systems to fly fleets of drones, in a race to gain a technological edge in their battle against the Russian invasion. Kyiv hopes AI-enabled drones on the front line will combat increasing signal jamming by Russia And enable unmanned aerial vehicles to work in larger groups. AI-drone development in Ukraine is helping identify targets and fly drones into them, navigation, and more complex programs including interconnected "swarms." Swarmer is one of many tech firms developing software linking a large number of drones that would be beyond human's capacity to control. Decisions can be made instantly across the group through AI, with a human only stepping in to green-light automated strikes. CEO of Swarmer Serhiy Kupriienko explains how it works. "You have 25 drones approaching your position. You just hit them all. That's one story. And it's a different story when you hit the first drone and every other drone just changes its trajectory and attacks you from different sides. This is what makes swarming so powerful and so scary at the same time. And that's why every single modern Western military doctrine has swarming as a part of decade-long planning, or strategy. " The software, called Styx, directs a web of reconnaissance and strike drones in the air and on the ground. It's still under development and has only been trialed on the battlefield experimentally. Here's employee Yaryk explaining how it operates. "The drone now flies on autopilot mode using our software. We assigned it with a mission and it built its own flying route, we just told it that it shouldn't fly through certain areas, we gave it a no-fly zone. It now flies along these restricted areas." As both sides roll out electronic warfare that disrupt signals between pilots and drones, hit rates of non-AI-drones are decreasing. Some of Ukraine's long-range drone strikes targeting military facilities and oil refineries hundreds of miles inside Russia are already using swarming methods. However, there are ethical concerns for the use of weapons that aren’t operated by humans. A 2020 European Parliament research paper warned that such systems could commit violations of international humanitarian law and lower the threshold of going to war.
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