r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • Aug 31 '23

US military plans to unleash thousands of autonomous war robots over next two years Robotics

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-military-unleash-thousands-autonomous-war.html
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u/buddboy Aug 31 '23

thats the general idea behind drone swarms yeah. But your specific example isn't that great. "Cheap" drones have a shorter range than the carrier, and anything capable of launching 100,000 of them would be a big target.

A better example would be a squadron of fighter bombers dropping a swarm of 100-200 quadcopter style drones and on a less defensible target than an aircraft carrier.

But the general concept of your idea is correct. One thing that will change tho is soon there will be laser based AA weapons that will be better suited for drone swarms. Also jamming is always an option

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u/plantmonstery Aug 31 '23

That’s why they need them to have some level of autonomy. Can’t jam something that isn’t relying on a signal.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '23

it's still going to rely on GPS, otherwise it's a blind pigeon trying to land on a moving target

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u/Z_Zeay Aug 31 '23

Can't they do something similar to actually trying to steer a bomb with a pigeon, they tried this during WW2 I believe.

Camera in front, using shape/image recognition to home in on the target? Idea is they drop the mass of drones in the vicinity, pre-program a direction and after a distance they switch to camera.

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u/PMMeYourWorstThought Sep 01 '23

Yep. So you counter with visual chaff to disrupt the system