Unamned Fighting Vehicles (UFV)

Im not sure if this has already been disscused or not but has any one heard about these unmanned ground fighting platform the (UFV) thats say about the 10th the size of most manned ground fighting platforms that can be multi role , ie they can be fitted with weaponary for a particular task such as mobile heavy machine gun unit, mobile air defence,radar,logistics supply transporter and many more custimisations that may be produced on the basic unit itself , id like to know if any 1 else has heard this as i think it is a very gd idea as there are no casualties invovled for whoever is operating these vehicle hundreds of miles away.



just hope they dont give these things A.I


Plus the drawbacks with these things i beleive may be EMP


Whats every 1's opion on this are we just going all tecky with all this mybe 1 day wars wont be casualty based but collatoraly based

Heres a pic of a UGV the FireAnt which is designed for a anti-tank role. This thing can be dropped in a area and then wait for days even weeks for a enemy tank to come by the it attacks. These things are amazing something that small can take out a 70 ton tank. A enemy tank wouldnt even see it if it was running only on eletric energy there wouldn't really be any IR signature for it to pick up.


I think another important role for these UGV could be a tester for enemy force strength. You could send some armed UGV into a enemy controlled area to see what type of defense they have set up and better gauge their strength.

There is going to be more and more roles for these robots in the future. They will be very important in future conflicts in the air,land and sea.

In your own opinion how many of these could be transported in what is considered the largest military transport plane and would it be affective with sheer swarm tactics and beeing dificult to destroy seein as how there small and very fast after being air deployed into a potential combat zone givin the diffrent scenario's and needed weapons for a particular mission and are these things able to be networked to recive orders and be human contolled via an interface say anywhere on earth via satilite, so could 1 day large transport planes that are say unmanned and controlled in the same way drop these UFV into hot zones and will there be a day when its non men fighting men but machine on machine , i want to know your opinion on this as well any 1 as that seems to be the developed world is going and that would this inturn bring its own risks as well as these are not manned could they potentialy be sabotaged by hackers and come down to even more problems implicated with this technoligy which could result in these thing being used against us

this technoligy can be comprimised at any time

[edit on 29-8-2004 by Rugoolian]

Rugoolian


Well the C-5 Galaxy is the largest cargo plane the US miltary has right now,with a cargo load of 270,000 pounds and about 121.1 ft / 36.91 m cu ft of cargo space so about 13,409 sqft of room. Its alittle hard because the stats of the FireAnt have not been released that I know of. I estimate its size as about that of a ATV perhaps a little smaller. so lets say about 5ft x 3ft and 400lbs. so you could fit 893 if you didnt stack them untop of each other in one C-5 but thats alittle heavy for it so lets say 700 in one plane.(if my stats are correct on the fireant it could be much smaller and weigh less then I guessed)

Interesting that you mention swarmed tactics as DARPA has researched the tatics of ants and bees for robot designs. Alot of dumb robots working with a common goal can do some amazing stuff. Personally I think human control is best as robots are quite dumb right now but in 20 yrs they may be as smart as humans and in 50yrs far smarter then a human.

There also seems to be work being done right now that would produce smart land mines. This might be good for what you described you could drop thousands of these into a area and for the most part they could be really dumb just moving around looking for a target. When they find a target or targets the could call other smart mines to come help them and attack in a swarm like ants do. Then if there job was over they could disarm themselves or selfdestruct.

If these future robots are hooked up to a wireless network there would be a chance for them to get hacked. But if you only use manual interface with them it wont really be a problem.(who would try to hook up to a walking land mine to take control of it)

im not saying ur wrong about them being unable to be hacked but i must piont out wirless technoligy is easy to hijack sumwhat like bluetooth as u can ride on the network signals and dectect the frequencys beeing sent out to these UFV's but if im wrong id like to no how they cant be hijacked because there wireless and what evidence suggests so


Thats a good piece of info anyways and that rather cost effective 1 plane to deploy as many as u described it is kinna scary those numbers are involved ,

i see awl this as u mentioned about the swarm tactics beeing disscused i relised that this could be impoyed now but on a UAV level as i feel everything is a piece of a puzzle that should be understood before it is harnessed


whats ur opinion

[edit on 29-8-2004 by Rugoolian]

I think have a good point about the weakness of a wireless connection. I was really talking more of a system that could only be controled when you physically plug a computer into it. Thats a type of system I would think would be really hard to hack.

So the robot will be programed already with a mission and only by hooking another computer up to it could you alter its programing.

But we seem to be using a wireless system for the predator and they have to be careful not to make it easy for anyone to take control of it. Then they have the global Hawk that seems to fly on a pre-programed course that is not actually flown by a human. It hard to tell which they will use as they both have advantages.