This originally appeared on my newsletter, Democratizing Automation. There is no situation when I want to encounter a drone of unknown origin, and in the future, we’ll be seeing hundreds.

它最初出现在我的时事通讯“民主化自动化”中。 当我想遇到一架未知来源的无人机时，在任何情况下，将来，我们都会看到数百架。

In 2016 the number of consumer drones purchased was 2.4million; which was up from 1.1million in 2015 [source, source]. Continuing that trend (pessimistically) has about 10–20million drones sold in 2020. The consumerization of small drones opens up big questions in the future of a stable society and warfare.

2016年，购买的民用无人机数量为240万架； 从110万升，2015年[ 源 ， 源 。 继续这种趋势(悲观地)，到2020年将售出约10–20百万架无人机。小型无人机的消费化在未来稳定的社会和战争中提出了很大的问题。

Don’t believe me? Click below for a quick introduction.

不相信我吗 单击下面的快速介绍。

Drones are cheap, versatile, and difficult to track. If you think, “hmm, maybe people won’t exploit them,” here is the US Military practice releasing a micro-aerial-vehicle (MAV) swarm. The classified content must be more extreme.

无人机价格便宜，用途广泛且难以追踪。 如果您认为“嗯，也许人们不会利用它们”，这就是美国军方发布的微型飞机(MAV)群的做法。 分类的内容必须更加极端。

And the clincher, Turkey has suicide bombing drones it could export (designed in Isreal). The drone, called the Kargu is named after hawk in Turkish. Read some technology specifications:

关键的是， 土耳其拥有可以出口的自杀式炸弹无人机 (由Isreal设计)。 这架名为Kargu的无人机以土耳其鹰头命名。 阅读一些技术规范：

The 15-pound Kargu-2 can fly at up to 90 miles per hour and can remain airborne for up to 30 minutes. It has a line-of-sight control link with a range of around six miles.

15磅重的Kargu-2可以每小时最高90英里的速度飞行，并且可以在空中停留长达30分钟。 它的视线控制链接范围约为6英里。

The drones can carry one of three different types of warheads, including a high-explosive fragmentation one for engaging personnel and other unarmored targets in the open, a thermobaric type good for targets in confined spaces such as buildings or caves, and a shaped charge for attacking lightly armored threats. [Source]

无人机可以携带三种不同类型的弹头之一，其中之一是高爆破片，可在空旷地区与人员和其他未装甲的目标相接；温压型，可用于受限空间中的目标，例如建筑物或洞穴，以及可变形的装药攻击轻型装甲威胁。 [ 来源 ]

The hawk naming now should be abundantly clear — it has the ability to eliminate any visible target. The seller claims that this drone is for anti-drone and asymmetric, modern warfare. It is only a matter of time until these technologies trickle down into even more controversial hands. The US Central Command Chief already declared:

鹰的命名现在应该非常清楚-它具有消除任何可见目标的能力。 卖方声称这架无人机是用于反无人机和不对称的现代战争 。 这些技术落入更具争议性的手中只是时间问题。 美国中央司令官已经宣布 ：

“US troops can’t keep up with the flood of cheap drones downrange.”

“美军无法跟上廉价无人机泛滥的范围。”

This is the storm of drones I am writing about. 10s, 100s, or 1000s of drones attacking our troops abroad or leaders at home. How do we defend against this?

这是我正在写的无人机风暴 。 10、100或1000架无人驾驶飞机袭击我们的国外部队或国内领导人。 我们该如何防御呢？

The definition of a drone and a swarm is not always clear — especially swarm.

无人机和蜂群的定义并不总是很清楚，尤其是蜂群。

无人驾驶飞机 (Drones)

Google default definition (after some noises, and bees):

Google的默认定义(经过一些喧闹声和蜜蜂之后)：

a remote-controlled pilotless aircraft or missile.

遥控无人驾驶飞机或导弹。

I think Google’s definition will rapidly be outdated as drones are controlled onboard/locally (autonomous).

我认为，随着无人机在机载/本地 (自主)上的控制， Google的定义将很快过时。

群居 (Swarms)

Google’s default definition is actually not too bad (better then many researchers I encounter using the word):

Google的默认定义实际上还算不错(比我遇到的使用这个词的许多研究人员更好)：

a large or dense group of insects, especially flying ones

一大群或密集的昆虫，尤其是飞行中的昆虫

The word that I think is imperative is dense. A swarm is a dense object, where controlling one member differently may go totally unnoticed. In this end, a swarm is governed by a) emergent behavior or b) central control.

我认为这个词是当务之急是密集 。 群是一个密集的对象，在其中不同地控制一个成员可能会完全被忽略。 为此，一群人受到a) 紧急行为或b)中央控制的支配 。

Does a party of robots become a swarm at 10, 50, 100, or 1000 agents? Swarm-control research in the 2000s primarily focused on optimal-control for the order of 10 robots. The research is focused on a few robots, and each individual is still crucial. In my circles, we don’t consider that a swarm, but we like to think about where that boundary lies. A comment on swarm definitions from my advisor Kris Pister:

一队机器人会变成10个，50个，100个或1000个特工的一群吗？ 在2000年代，群控制研究主要集中在10个机器人数量级的最佳控制上。 该研究集中在几个机器人上，每个人仍然至关重要。 在我的圈子中，我们不认为这群人，但我们想考虑一下边界的位置。 我的顾问Kris Pister对群组定义的评论：

How do people do [swarm control]? Somehow we have centralized hierarchical planning with distributed decision making at all levels as the communication breaks down or time constants of the dynamics are shorter than the communication/decision-making latency. Military operations are a common example [of a swarm], but running a household is similar — usually you don’t run out of coffee, and usually two people don’t buy coffee at the same time. (Households are not a swarm by Nathan’s definition, but militaries are, and so is public health).

人们如何[群体控制]？ 由于通信中断或动态时间常数短于通信/决策制定的等待时间，因此我们采用某种方式进行了集中式分层计划，在各个级别进行了分布式决策。 军事行动是[一群人]的常见例子，但是经营一家人是类似的事–通常您不会用完咖啡，通常两个人不会同时购买咖啡。 (按照内森的定义，家庭不是一群，但军队是，公共卫生也是如此)。

We are interested in swarms of micro-robots to assist in emergency response, agriculture, distributed sensing, and more. The distinction is that micro-robots can be made at an immense scale (1000s), so we have a totally different magnitude of concern.

我们对众多微型机器人感兴趣，这些微型机器人可用于紧急响应，农业，分布式传感等领域。 区别在于微型机器人可以以巨大的规模(1000s)制造，因此我们的关注程度完全不同。

How do we wrangle a true aggressive swarm?

我们如何纠缠真正的侵略性群体？

反无人机 (Anti-Drone)

Here is what I have found (and done) in the space of anti-drone work.

这是我在反无人机工作领域中发现(和完成)的事情。

无人机粉碎机？ (Drone smashers?)

This was in a slew of emails about drones in the defense industry. The drone (equipped with a surface designed to ram other drones and break rotors and motors) is named Anduril (also known as the flame of the west), and is impressive, but I’m not sure how well it’ll work versus an expectant target.

这是关于国防工业无人机的大量电子邮件。 该无人机(装备有可以撞击其他无人机并破坏转子和马达的表面)被命名为Anduril (也称为西方火焰)，令人印象深刻，但是我不确定它与预期目标。

Click below for a demo of how an anti-drone drone behaves.

单击下面的演示以了解 无人驾驶无人机的 行为。

更智能的反无人机无人机？ (Smarter anti-drone drones?)

I don’t love this one because it seems fairly obvious that the technology used to improve defenders could improve attackers. We are researching how a team of defensive drones could try to prevent many attackers from entering a highlighted area. The thing to learn is how to position each drone relative to the attacker so that it can launch the net at the attacker (destroying it) while remaining airborne. I suspect we may have drones to do this around airports and many other critical, public areas.

我不喜欢这一点，因为用于改善防御者的技术似乎很明显可以改善攻击者。 我们正在研究一组防御性无人机如何试图阻止许多攻击者进入突出区域。 要学习的事情是如何相对于攻击者定位每架无人机，以便它可以在保持空降的同时向攻击者发射网(摧毁它)。 我怀疑我们可能有无人机在机场和许多其他关键的公共区域内这样做。

Click below for a video illustrating a defensive swarm (red) fending off invading drones (blue) from a base area. This is based on Boids flocking algorithm, and an active area of research.

单击下面的视频，观看防御群(红色)抵御来自基础区域的入侵无人机(蓝色)。 这是基于 Boids植绒算法的 ，并且是一个活跃的研究领域。

Brainstorming anti-drone techniques results in some common answers [see more]:

集思广益的反无人机技术会带来一些常见的答案[ 查看更多 ]：

• Drones themselves: a drone equipped with a net can easily take down another drone. Drones also can crash into a target to destroy fragile flying pieces (see below, Drone smashers). A one-on-one trade of a military object for a consumer level drone is hilariously expensive (I estimate 1000x).

  无人驾驶飞机本身 ：配备有网的无人驾驶飞机可以轻松取下另一架无人驾驶飞机。 无人机也可能撞向目标，以摧毁易碎的飞行碎片(见下文，无人机粉碎机)。 军用物品与消费级无人机的一对一交易非常昂贵(我估计为1000倍)。

• Electromagnetic pulse (EMP): EMP is hailed because it’ll destroy the electronics and render the electric-motor driven vehicle (and its control electronics) useless. The issue is that EMP pulses generally have severe effects on things other than the target, and development of mobile / handheld EMPs is pricey and slow.

  电磁脉冲(EMP) ：之所以称呼EMP，是因为它会破坏电子设备并使电动汽车(及其控制电子设备)失效。 问题在于，EMP脉冲通常会对目标以外的事物产生严重影响，并且移动/手持式EMP的开发既昂贵又缓慢。

• Lasers / other ground based defense: I’m not sure how useful these are, but there are military-vehicles equipped with high power lasers designed to melt pieces of oncoming drones. The issue again is that this defense is way more costly than the offensive (potentially consumer drones).

  激光器/其他基于地面的防御系统 ：我不确定它们的用处如何，但是有些军用车辆配备了大功率激光器，旨在熔化即将来临的无人机。 再有一个问题是，这种防御比进攻性(潜在的消费者无人机)要昂贵得多。

What is the ethical line of working on anti-drone technologies?

反无人机技术的道德原则是什么？

We are simulating “drone dogfighting” in my research group, and I wonder if we should be. It’s not clear how to control the dissemination of work, but how to nations close the gap from offense to defense in technology, without making the world more dangerous (see arms race). History shows that this is hard to avoid.

我们正在我的研究小组中模拟“无人机争斗”，我想知道是否应该这样做。 目前尚不清楚如何控制工作的传播，但是如何使各国缩小技术攻防之间的差距，而又不会使世界变得更加危险( 请参阅军备竞赛 )。 历史表明，这很难避免。

I have a future post about the problem with accelerating technological progress and the difference between offensive and defensive capabilities. I think we need treaties and active cyber awareness. With drone’s it is difficult to study because consumers love drones! People want drones to deliver their pizza robustly. How do we stop progress and availability if consumers drive the market? We don’t.

我在未来的文章中谈到技术进步加速问题以及进攻和防守能力之间的差异。 我认为我们需要条约和积极的网络意识。 使用无人机很难学习，因为消费者喜欢无人机！ 人们希望无人机能够强大地运送比萨饼。 如果消费者驱动市场，我们如何停止进步和可用性？ 我们没有。

其他风暴酝酿 (Other storms brewing)

• Bunches of drones forming and moving over Colorado and Nebraska prairies at nighttime. Not practically traceable, an invasion of privacy, and causing some state-level responses.

  夜间，成群的无人机在科罗拉多州和内布拉斯加州大草原上形成并移动 。 几乎无法追踪，这是对隐私的入侵，并引起一些州一级的响应 。

• The US Air Force testing and utilizing unmanned drones for undisclosed missions. This is unsurprising.

  美国空军测试和利用无人机进行未披露的任务 。 这不足为奇。

• The US Air Force testing a pilot-less fighter. They hope the advantage in sustained g-forces will help, but honestly the processing speed for modern autonomous systems is still years behind. In a few years, yes this will be the reality.

  美国空军测试了无人驾驶战斗机 。 他们希望持续重力的优势将有所帮助，但老实说，现代自治系统的处理速度仍然落后了数年。 是的，几年后这将成为现实。

How many of you have actually listened to a bunch of quadrotor drones flying nearby? It sucks. A lot. To the point where even considering using quadrotors extensively for local delivery sounds so nonsensical to me.

你们当中实际上有多少人听过一群四旋翼无人机在附近飞行？ 糟透了 很多。 甚至考虑广泛使用四旋翼飞机进行本地交付听起来对我来说都是荒谬的。

In my research group, we are developing a silent drone, but it is still so many steps from practical that we do not worry about militarization (yes, we discuss the ethics of it). You can watch the video below.

在我的研究小组中，我们正在开发一种无声无人机，但是离实践还差很多步，所以我们不必担心军事化(是的，我们在讨论军事伦理)。 您可以观看下面的视频。

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