Robots & Drones

It is a fact: drones and robots are already ubiquitous in theatres of operations, and this trend will continue apace. From intelligence and reconnaissance all the way to target designation and attack, these systems are designed and deployed to keep humans out of harm’s way and extend their capabilities well beyond the line of sight.

But deploying such a wide range of unmanned systems requires careful orchestration from the start, coping with two key challenges: making these new means work with legacy ones and efficiently leveraging on their autonomy.

Thales is capitalizing decades of experience and know-how across different teams to provide its clients with mission-oriented solutions to fully integrate drones and robots into air-land combat operations. Through OpenDRobotics, drones, robots and vehicles become a system that provides fully integrated operational capacities (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, observation, engagement, route clearance, etc.). 

Drones and robots – who’s what?

Drones’ and robots’ added value is straightforward : they extend the armed forces’ capabilities (volume, permanence, and resilience) while keeping them out of harm’s way. 

For land forces, this shift is happening with two main types of unmanned technologies whose role will differ on the battlefield. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), more commonly referred to as drones, are autonomous platforms fitted with several payloads to carry out various missions. Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV) can be both drones and robots. They can either carry payloads to execute missions autonomously – drones – or they feature specific extensions, such as hydraulic arms, to carry out programmed complex tasks autonomously – robots.

Bringing autonomy to the battlefield

With OpenDRobotics, Thales sought to address one of the critical challenges armed forces face when introducing autonomous systems in their collaborative combat order of battle (ORBAT): ensure cooperation with soldiers, manned platforms  and other assets engaged in the battlefield.  This integration with conventional means is critical because as armies start deploying UGVs and UAVs for an increasing number of missions, those systems will have to be fully integrated with existing mission systems (e.g. Command and Control – C2) to ensure efficiency and interoperability. 

The offer for these systems may be extensive, but the speed at which threats develop and change is such that the payloads enabling those missions – optical, InfraRed, Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), and Image Intelligence (IMINT) – must evolve just as fast. This includes efficient and effective integration to act on the intelligence gathered quickly.

UGVs as robots also play a significant role in military engineering or Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) missions. Equipped with cameras, hydraulic arms, communication links, etc., UGVs can move ahead of a regiment to clear fields from obstacles or potential threats – such as mines or CBRN threats. Once again, UGVs must be fully integrated into the regiment’s command system to carry out hand-to-hand missions.

Finally, UAVs and UGVs can also be used to support offensives. Typically, this can include – but is not limited to – using these systems to designate targets or as loitering ammunitions if fitted with the relevant payload.

Through Open DRrobotics, Thales is present across all these missions – and many others involving UGVs and UAVs – providing customers with the communication system, payloads, AI modules, C2 integration in a tactical mission system, qualification, and training means necessary to carry them out efficiently and successfully. 
 

Artificial Intelligence - Enabling (and trusting) autonomy

With the resurgence of high-intensity combat, theatres of operations are becoming complex, with multiple, diverse threats coming from different domains – at times simultaneously. In this context, the importance of UAVs and UGVs as effects multiplier to address those challenges is significantly growing. For instance, several armies worldwide are exploring the CONOPS to use these systems in swarms to saturate adversaries’ defenses, accelerate intelligence gathering or act in a disruptive in the Spectrum field.

Autonomy is thus key, to both limiting the cognitive workload on operators and multiplying UxVs’ capabilities, especially to enable swarming capabilities. It relies on AI bricks based on both Machine Learning (ML) and symbolic AI to realize autonomous functionalities that armed forces can trust.  However, it is critical that these autonomous systems operate at all-time within the framework of the mission defined by, and according to the will of the fighters. To that end, Thales is developing SwarmMaster, a swarming solution based on the concept of Autonomy Contracts. This drone agnostic solution is at the same time a generic architecture allowing the quick production of multiple swarm instantiations to respond to almost all CONOPS, and a framework ensuring that AI algorithms effect will remain within the limits and act according to rules defined by the operator during mission preparation. 

In a nutshell, Thales Open DRobotics aims to facilitate its clients’ operationalization of drones and robots on the battlefield – alone, in swarms, and in concert with other platforms and systems. Through efficient integration and autonomy, it ensures a smooth introduction of tomorrow’s extended collaborative combat with UAVs and UGVs. Finally, DRoBotics’ openness allows Thales to work with a large panel of partners to manufacture drones and robots, combining their talent, technologies and innovation to bring the best solution to Armies.