@Damion Sparhawk I personally don't get the fear of autonomous fighting machines. They fill a niche on the battlefield. Some missiles are already autonomous and many drones have autonomous features. I've been thinking about anti-drone tactics and the best way to take out a drone seems to be a smaller and cheaper autonomous anti-drone hunter-killer. For any category of drones you could just build something like one fifth of the size and cost hunter-killer that can linger up to months or more in location, receive new orders when not jammed and execute it's mission of area denial for things like enemy drone intelligence gathering etc. and situation permitting taking out spotters, radists etc. This on the other hand would reduce the ability to use anything but 'tight beam' communications because for passive cold systems it would be too easy to take them out by being in the vicinity. Also, this would result in the kind of battle on ground that I imagine for space as well... Lots of interference, you luckily spot someone, take him out - but in doing so your missile launch is detected and you get taken out and quickly everything is firing at everything OK; it isn't that easy and obvious. You'd still need to move a number of physical weapons platforms in place and all and you could lure them out with fake signals.
To be fair, depending on the scale of the EMP, just about every tool we have on the battlefield is 'vulnerable to EMP' -including- people. That said though, scale is the significant factor. Currently our tech level only allows large scale EMP from nuclear sources. We are capable of significantly reducing the damage radius of the blast but there's still going to be massive damage at the epicenter. We can generate EMP's on a smaller scale a number of different ways (a high voltage transformer generates a fairly significant EMP when it explodes) however the effective radius is quite a a bit smaller dependent entirely on the size and energy capacity of the device. On top of that thanks to the inverse square rule the farther you are from the epicenter of the EMP the easier it is to be protected from it (which is why people are generally not affected, if you're close enough for the EMP to penetrate your skin meat and bones you've probably been vaporized by the initial blast beforehand) There's a lot of heat involved with that much energy moving together which is another way an EMP can destroy tech, but generally the most consistent tech killer is arcing. The EMP wave travels across an unprotected circuit and creates bridges of electrons across normally isolated circuits allowing the power to travel in unintended ways. If you're far enough from the epicenter simply turning off your electronics is usually enough to protect them. After that you can insulate, much like the skin does for us meat sacks adding layers of non-conductive materials will reduce the impact of an EMP. Finally you can include preventative conductive layers such as a Faraday cage which will allow the electrons to dissipate harmlessly across the protective layer rather than penetrating into the device itself. A lot of military electronics are already somewhat protected, though it's as of yet rather untested seeing as how we've never been threatened by a significant threat capable of generating EMP and not more interested in more lethal methods. It's always the same fear related to AI deciding humans aren't really worth keeping around, machines don't have emotions or empathy and if you put a gun on a machine without a human responsible for pulling the trigger you risk some pretty unpleasant potential fallout. Nothing worse than humans have done to each other for centuries, but people seem to think at least with a person there's a chance you could convince them to be better. An AI simply follows it's programming. Of course, we write the programming so in the end it's still a human at fault. At least until the Singularity. XD You're right that an anti-drone would be the simplest method for protecting against hunter-killer drones. Wouldn't even need to be all that sophisticated, just a swarm of small drones that target electronic signals under specific conditions. Basically tiny flying tasers could latch on and disable their electronics causing failure. Of course those could also be used against people, tiny tasers or tiny bombs swarm drones are likely to be a pretty heinous terror weapon. Though I wouldn't be shocked if the future of warfare is almost entirely countermeasures, I mean Anti-missile lasers are already a thing, I'm sure they'd do just fine on a drone. Swarm drones could easily be stopped by a simple fence long as it's robust enough. The real fear is simply how people will use them that isn't already considered and able to be defended against.
Nuclear bombs produce a vast EMP in part of course because of the power involved but also by how much of the EMP is created - from the atmospheric absorption of radiation - this can happen in a vast area and in vastest when detonating bombs in low orbit where the radiation has more space to spread out before encountering atmospheric particles. This way you can create some truly massive EMP effects. Also something like a casaba howitzer can create a directional EMP effect when fired above targeted area while also being able to incinerate anything immediately in the target area itself. Hardening of electronics is an absolute necessity of military as are redundant systems for many of the more complex platforms such as fighters. I seem to recall some of the modern ones had some systems backed up with up to six alternate systems for redundancy. As for the Skynet fear, yea, it probably not the best idea to hook up everything from mining to logistics to manufacturing to armed forces under a single CPU called Skynet Also, there's a reason why the US nuclear missile silos still use 50+ years old computers with a really, really long and complex firing sequence. When the firing computer is more stupid than your toaster - good luck trying to hack that system or find a chip vulnerability. Which reminds me, everyone knows all the modern systems are built with designed vulnerabilities. Something like an autonomous hunter robot would make little difference in a modern battlefield, it doesn't replace a human and it isn't cheap but it could most certainly fill a niche or two. Or three. ------ Speaking of future of warfare, I'm quite excited of the prospect of seeing actual mechs one day. - Nuclear reactor gives you so much power to pump through your energy weapons, nevermind for moving yourself quite rapidly! - With the power available you can power a plasma field or a plasma screen - not sure if they can be run simultaneously but the field protects against attacks. Plasma field is more of a counter-shockwave device that reduces the incoming shockwave whereas plasma window creates a window that is impassable for kinetic objects such as depleted uranium rounds or warheads but permissible to many types or radiation - lasers. - Firing microwaves in 'wide arc' with nuclear reactor power is ridiculously powerful dazzler and antipersonnel and antisensor weapon. - Elevated firing position allows hull down long away from a hill and in general longer engagement distances, combined with superior defenses and energy weapons it is quite something. - Enough power to operate high-energy railguns. - Enough power to put out ridiculous amounts of wide-band jamming and other ECM etc. I still don't think they'll draw a light-dagger from a holster and dart at the other one to wrestle it... Or hang around in a sword bind and broadcast a monologue reflecting upon the morality of the ongoing conflict on an open channel - or a private one shared by the opposing pilot!! Nevermind ordinary AA machine guns and SPAAG's!
I wonder what's going on with those limitations. I can buy a rotating laser scanner or a few to map out surroundings in real-time and use Jetson Nano or a few to find, track and estimate skeletal poses of individuals or identify items. And so on. I haven't yet made my own motor control but it should have a physical simulation inside that takes into account the alignments of each part relative to gravity, momentum, etc. and also have a PID controller for each motor that compensates between input, motor wear, resistances etc. to maintain desired functionality. Couple of car batteries or battery packs from laptops etc. and you can keep a robot going a while. If I had the money and time to focus on it I'd start working on an affordable household butler robot yesterday!
More in the line of preparing taking out the trash, fetching you a beer, collecting empty bottles, cleaning windows, preparing food, using the washing machine. Edit. I just realized that fetching beers or ciders is all that it really has to do as long as it's reasonably fast. Who gives a crap about that other stuff, though an automated home order for pizza and collecting the pizza and paying the pizza guy would be quite easy.
The Wolfram Project is working on a new method to discover the fundamental laws of physics itself. It's showing immense promise as they're even farther along already than the founders of the project expected to be after only a month. Check it out.
I really like multidimensional geometry if you will, trying to find those odd attractor states and zeroing in on the given local optimums. While computation power increases we find new ways to really sink a ton of it to - but it's very useful. For instance testing out game design and tuning the variables, it is invaluable.
"Tempest will be able to fly unmanned, and use swarming technology to control drones. It will incorporate artificial intelligence deep learning and possess directed-energy weapons."
Nice general purpose 40mm rounds, can be used to penetrate targets or for area effect. Definitely something I'd put for the general purpose turrets on a mech for lesser targets.
The new US hypervelocity artillery system just shot down a cruise missile. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davida...just-shot-down-a-cruise-missile/#53951754209e The new hypervelocity artillery system has guided hypervelocity munitions that have significantly reduced drag to provide them their sustained velocity and greater range and resulting in reduced time to impact. These provide them with not just higher accuracy over greater distance but also allow them to target things like fighters, ships, vehicles, cruise missiles and even ballistic missiles.
