Review of talk by Lt Col Robin Phayre on ‘Drones’
Retired Lt Col Robin Phayre began his talk by explaining that the technical term for drones is ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’ or UAVs. In a wide-ranging and well-structured talk, he showed photographs of many types of military drone from different countries including Russia and Ukraine, from tiny machines the size of a mosquito to small unmanned aircraft with combat ranges of hundreds of kilometres. The main purposes of military drones were reconnaissance and attack. They could identify enemy positions and strength using cameras with different capabilities such as infrared, ultra violet or ground penetrating radar, and how drones therefore can identify concealed enemy forces, mines, tanks, electronic warfare (EW) equipment, and troop concentrations. He also mentioned how maritime drones are coming into use.
Robin went on to talk about how best to defend against drones and explained that there are jamming, hacking, spoofing, laser energy and other means of attacking a drone and defending against them. The Russian EW systems are excellent.
He touched on the ethics of employing drones for targeted killing of people before covering the impact of Artificial Intelligence and described why scientists and others are very concerned about AI’s recent exponential advances.
Finally, he covered briefly the peaceful uses of drones, deploying medical assistance and emergency food, rescuing people, pest detection, logistic resupply in difficult areas, the ability of underwater drones to locate artefacts and archaeology, and on the military side, the potential future use of subsea drones to attack under water cables, gas pipes etc, and drone swarms to overcome defences
The talk was profusely illustrated with photographs and diagrams, and a couple of chilling videos showing live drone attacks. Robin created a sensation when he unveiled two real drones which he uses himself for civil purposes. Questions following the talk included the British position on using drones, which was experienced but small-scale compared with activities in the Ukrainian conflict.
Philip Ratcliffe