What’s inside?
Unmanned and autonomous systems are having a moment. They have been around, in scale, for at least two decades, yet as the data above shows, there is unprecedented momentum around unmanned capabilities. This is only partially due to their inherent advantages. The core driver of this trend is the dramatic gap between the manufacturing power of the West and East.
China is building ships faster than the U.S. and its navy is expanding faster than any other navy on the planet. The manufacturing power and pace of the East, led by China, is creating an unbalanced battlefield, which holds true for surface, airborne, and underwater vehicles. Benefits of unmanned technology aside, the propulsion of unmanned systems is mainly a numbers game.
An arms race that focuses on hardware (who has the most drones, aircraft, or ships) is more difficult to win now than ever before for the West, given the dizzying pace of military growth in China and other Eastern countries.
Instead of an incessant and ineffectual hardware race, strategic advantage can be achieved by the West through being smarter and more agile. A shift from trying to have the largest number of weapons and the most expensive ones, to cheaper swarms that can be deployed cost-effectively and quickly. This means incorporating technology, specifically artificial intelligence (AI), to gain an edge.
The more hardware that is developed, the more it is understood that battlefield victory likely depends on who has the best common operating picture to manage and coordinate unmanned/autonomous and manned assets.
Possessing the most robust data analytics tool to scan an endless churn of data from numerous feeds to make faster and more informed decisions is critical as are systems that create high-quality security leads.
Windward’s NEW white paper, The Two Factors that Unlock the Effectiveness of Unmanned & Autonomous Systems, can help you meet this important moment! It highlights the benefits of unmanned technology, provides two critical factors for maximizing unmanned tech, and explains how to create common operation pictures.
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