Unmanned Systems

Savior or Threat

Dr. Terence M. Dorn

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781662451720
• eBook ISBN: 9781662451737
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Military Science & Technology
• Index: Technology & Engineering

The threat of an attack involving an unmanned system armed with a weapon of mass destruction is a present one. With two million drones projected to be flying US skies in 2020, unmanned aircraft systems in the air domain pose a significant challenge to the nation's security. Other technological advancements, such as artificial intelligence, combined with unmanned systems, have transformed the threat's very nature, yet the skies are not the only domain of concern. The technology is also developing rapidly in unmanned undersea and surface systems, expanding potential weapons of mass destruction delivery options. This publication is an examination of unmanned aerial systems (UAS), unmanned surface systems (USS), and unmanned undersea systems (UUS). The technological innovation that led to the global commercialization of UAS is underway with USS and UUS. Until recently, no known scholarly studies existed that examined the vulnerabilities of one sector of US critical infrastructure to attack by UAS until A Phenomenological Examination of US Nuclear Power Plants to Attack by Unmanned Aerial Systems was published late in 2020. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), there had been fifty-seven UAS incursions over twenty-four US nuclear power plants in the past five years, representing one of sixteen sectors of US critical infrastructure (Gardiner 2016; Rogoway and Trevithick 2020; Hambling 2020). Federal departments and organizations have largely ignored the threat potential that UAS pose despite the strategic guidance laid out in the 2017 National Security Strategy of the US. The nation's national security demands a close examination of the vulnerabilities and is immediately working to close those security gaps. This publication will focus on the emergency of new UAS capabilities and highlight the latest technologies, capabilities, and the significant national security threat implications that UAS, USS, and UUS platforms represent to US critical infrastructure.

Chapter 13

Wrap Up

The US UAS capabilities have established an almost permanent flying military quick reaction force with surveillance and kinetic capabilities over many global locations today. The proliferation of unmanned systems both militarily and in the commercial realm has already had a profound impact on society, and it has changed the nature of warfare in the twenty-first century. UAS has had a staggering impact on countries’ GDPs, estimated to be $31 to $41 billion in the US alone by 2026. USS will eventually displace humans from jobs as they continue to replace human beings with the mundane tasks associated with long-range highway driving. Over five hundred substantial autonomous vehicles in Australia are slowly driving tons of earth material to include ore and minerals, from the dig sites to the processing centers miles away. UUS will have an impact on the stability of the undersea warfighting domain. Emerging capabilities suggest that triad systems, sea-based leg of the triad of missile submarines, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and crewed bombers will increasingly become vulnerable to attack by unmanned systems.

In 2018, Sylvia Dell repeatedly flew her UAS into airspace over Heathrow International Airport, resulting in a shutdown of all flight operations. Sylvia did this to demonstrate her protest against global warming. The nonmilitary use of a UAS to shut down operations at a major airport resulted in the cancellation of eight hundred flights that affected over one hundred thousand travelers. The shutdown cost the government, airports, airlines, and passengers an estimated $65.5 million.

In 2006, a Chinese company, DJI, was born and quickly captured 77 percent of the global sUAS commercial UAS market. It is now focusing its efforts on USS and UUS products for the global market. The US initiated a program called the Trusted Capital Marketplace, in which the DOD led an effort to build an entirely US sUAS industry. Five companies will soon be certified as all American-made and added to the GSA catalog for government agencies to purchase.

In 2020, the first and only known scholarly study on the vulnerability of US critical infrastructure to attack by UAS was published; A Phenomenological Study Examining the Vulnerability of US Nuclear Power Plants to Attack by Unmanned Aerial Systems dared to look into the previously hidden world of the federal government’s view of UAS as a threat platform. This vulnerability was based upon UAS attacks or incursions that had been previously executed in multiple worldwide locations, namely the Saudi Arabia oil field and refinery attack in 2019. The threat posed by UAS to US nuclear power plants has been largely ignored by the NRC, which is especially odd in light of their FOIA-induced release of a treasure trove of documents. The released documents show that there have been fifty-seven UAS incursions over twenty-four separate nuclear power plants in the past five years. The unclassified information may be low, so one can only assume that the classified numbers are even more significant. The lack of acknowledgment and restrictions placed upon the civilian companies that own and operate over 85 percent of the US nuclear facilities is anathema to the shirking of its inherent responsibilities to US citizens. The federal government is responsible for its citizens to provide for the nation’s national security against foreign and domestic enemies.

Suppose US nuclear power plants are indeed vulnerable to attack by UAS. In that case, it is entirely likely that the fifteen other sectors of US critical infrastructure, each located on fixed sites whose locations are identified on Google Maps, are equally vulnerable to attack by UAS. Unforeseen threats posed by UAS using cyber and RF attacks against the software and hardware systems operate within systems that the US critical infrastructure companies utilize. Additional research into USS and USS must occur, and the present-day vulnerabilities that they could exploit.

To the US critical infrastructure, the technological advancements that have made UAS a colossal military and private hobbyist success are in the infancy stage of its introduction into commercial uses and has migrated into the emergence of the USS and new UUS systems and their domains of operation. Both individually and collectively, these unmanned systems form a significant threat to the homeland’s national security. The DOT and USCG are responsible for the security of the highways and twenty-five thousand miles of waterways in the US, both above and below the surface. Neither can protect either. US nuclear power plants’ vulnerabilitie...

Table of contents

• What If
• Introduction
• History of UAS
• National Security
• Key Components of the US Federal Government
• The Morality of UAS Use by the US Government
• UAS Success and Proliferation
• The Future of UAS
• The Vulnerabilities of Modern Societies to UAS Attack
• The Global Race for Counter UAS
• Introduction to USS
• Introduction to UUS
• Wrap Up