 |
| Akinci combat drone[Bayraktar Defence ] |
Massive use of artificial intelligence (AI) in drone industries has brought revolution.
What comes to our mind when we think about drones? Small aircraft are being flown from a sophisticated distance to record special events or adventurous moments?
As common people, these are drones/UAVs(Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) to us. But in a broader perspective UAVs have several categories. UAVs are typed mainly as Male UAVs and females or just UAVs. Male UAVs are those who are only used by armed forces which are actually being used in combat zone. Attacks are mainly done by missiles and air-to-ground laser bombs.
Female UAVs are both used by civilians and the military. Civilians use these for various jobs like those are mentioned above. Armed forces use these kinds of UAVs for mass aerial surveillance.
As the warfare strategies are being exalted with the evolve of our planet earth, UAVs have just sparkled a fire to boosted rocket. Now superpowers are much eager to add UAVs to their fleet and to integrate AI( Artificial Intelligence) with their remaining weapons. Though AI has its own realm, in defense industry its usage growth rate is a growing force mainly in air, ground, water, and Internet surveillance.
If we look into the market values we can see that the global artificial intelligence in modern warfare had a market value of 1.036 bn USD in 2018. It's expected to rise at approximately 7 bn USD by 2024 with the CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) of 40%! Now China is the leading country on conducting research and using AI in various intent though US defense companies like General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Boeing have crossed a far way to add AI with defense techs to be more advanced.
Let's get back to UAVs where there's an enormous opportunity to use AI in UAVs and it's already happening as more advanced tactical data links are coming up.
There were few examples of drone warfare but none of them were like Operation Spring Shield and Turkish operation in Libya led by Turkish Armed Forces. Some are already saying that Turkey has Drone Air Force. It's quite humorous now but in near future, there's no pledge that it won't be a reality. Because there are some factors which are indicating that initiatives to build the so-called "Drone Air Force " are already underway by the USA, Turkey, China & many more.
To maintain UAVs are cheaper than conventional fighter jets and have no life hazard of pilots. Again drone pilots are paid less than jet fighter pilots and drones can be operated from thousands of kilometers away. Considering all these objectives here's a statistic that shows how fast UAV is taking the place of conventional jets as the spy jets already been history.
Only the USA alone has passed a bill of more than $9 billion to procure 3,440+ UAVs under the 2019 budget from different aerospace companies of the USA.
US Companies like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Israeli government-owned IAI are ruling the UAV market. China is rising but the rise of Turkey with TAI and Bayraktar is significant than others since they have so called battle proof certificate.
Despite all these developments of advanced technologies aren't there's a threat of unemployment cause soldiers and pilots are human after all?
The author MD. Mahmud Hasan is a student at Department Of Criminology, University Of Dhaka.
He can be reached at mahmud101810@gmail.com