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CHAPTER 3

Intelligent Autonomous Things

on the Battlefield

Alexander Kott, Ethan Stump
U.S. Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD, United States

3.1 INTRODUCTION

The Internet of Battle Things (IoBT) is the emerging reality of warfare. A
variety of networked intelligent systems—“things”—will continue to pro-
liferate on the battlefield where they will operate with varying degrees of
autonomy. Intelligent things will not be a rarity but a ubiquitous presence
on the future battlefield (Scharre, 2014).
Most of these intelligent things will not be too dissimilar from the systems
we see on today’s battlefield, such as unattended ground sensors, guided
missiles (especially the fire-and-forget variety) and, of course, unmanned
aerial systems (UAVs). They will likely include physical robots ranging from
a very small size (such as insect-scale mobile sensors) to large vehicles that can
carry troops and supplies. Some will fly; others will crawl, walk or ride.
Their functions will be diverse. Sensing (seeing, listening, etc.) the battlefield
will be one common function. Numerous small, autonomous sensors can
cover the battlefield and provide an overall awareness to warfighters that
is reasonably complete and persistent (Fig. 3.1).
Other things might act as defensive devices, for example, autonomous
active protection systems (Freedberg, 2016). Finally, there will be munitions
that are intended to impose physical or cyber effects on the enemy. These
will not be autonomous, instead they will be controlled by human warfigh-
ters. This assumes that the combatants of that future battlefield will comply
with a ban on offensive autonomous weapons beyond meaningful human
control. Although the US Department of Defense already imposes strong
restrictions on autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems (Hall,
2017), nobody can predict what other countries might decide on this matter.
In addition to physical intelligent things, the battlefield—or at least the
cyber domain of the battlefield—will be populated with disembodied cyber

Artificial Intelligence for the Internet of Everything Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817636-8.00003-X All rights reserved. 47