Unmanned aerial vehicles for territorial surveillance. Technology trend 2030

Within the Research and development program funded by the Swedish Armed Forces, a technical forecast has been conducted. The purpose of the forecast has been to identify potential benefits and obstacles concerning the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles for territorial surveillance in 2030. The report focuses on the areas of autonomy and cyber threats but other areas relevant for a successful implementation in the Armed Forces such as positioning and communication has also been included. To understand the limitations and possibilities with these technologies will be crucial to anyone who wants to maximise the output of such a system. Many of the conclusions are valid regardless if the system is manned or unmanned. Autonomous and automatic military systems are not anything novel, e.g. cruise missiles have been around a long time, but the increase capability of computations have enabled a much higher lever of functions that are possible to automate today and the consequences of this is that there will be an increased number of unmanned military systems and their level of autonomy will be much higher. The emerging threat from cyber warfare will have a profound impact on the possibilities of projecting power on adversaries in future conflicts. The level of sophistication in how and what is achievable poses an imminent threat to, not just the information in military systems, but also to the reliability and availability of the actual platforms. The implication of cyber threats on automation is that the measures of protection must be considered in the very beginning of the design phase of new systems. The aim of this program is to increase the knowledge about autonomy and cyber threats and how they can be used in order to increase capabilities and cost effectiveness of military systems. In this report we do not address autonomy from the threat perspective. The overall conclusion of this report is that unmanned aerial vehicle will add a valuable contribution to the capability of airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, but this will require a careful selection of the optimal design of the complete system in order to optimize the cost effectiveness of the system.