Category: UK Drones – Future plans

RAF’s new armed drones begin test and training flights over UK

Chris Cole
Protector drone flying over RAF Waddington in February 2025
The UK’s new ‘Protector’ drone flying over RAF Waddington in Feb 2025. Credit: MoD

The RAF announced that its new armed drone, called SkyGuardian by other users but dubbed ‘The Protector’ by the UK, has begun regular test and training flights in the UK. At the same time, the UK has exercised an option to extend the life of its current Reaper drone fleet which were supposed to transition our of service by early 2024.

The UK ordered up to 26 new ‘Protector’ drones in October 2015 to replace the UK’s current fleet of armed Reaper drones. The new drones were supposed to be in service by 2018 but long delays and cost overruns – estimated to be more than £500m – has dogged the programme.  The MoD confirmed that four Protector drones have now been delivered to the UK.

Protector differs from its predecessor in that it can carry more weapons and fly further and for longer.  However the UK argues that the main advantage of the new drone is that it was built to standards that allowed it to be flown in civil airspace alongside other aircraft.

Rather than be based overseas as the UK’s current fleet of armed drones are, the new drone will be based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire and deploy directly for overseas operations from there.

However, the technology that allows uncrewed aircraft to supposedly fly safely in the same airspace as other aircraft has not yet been proved and current Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) rules means the drone must fly in segregated airspace, away from other aircraft.

Drone Wars has long argued that while the use of military armed drones has normalised, they continue to crash at a significant rate for a whole variety of reasons.

General Atomics advert showing a mock-up of the Protector drone flying over London.
General Atomics advert portraying a Protector drone flying over London.

Significantly, the new drone has been brought in with the understanding that it can also be used at times of crisis for operations within the UK under Military Aid to Civil Authorities (MACA) rules.  It is perhaps likely then that at a time of crisis, the UK’s armed drone could be deployed operationally over the UK.

Since 2023, the MoD has refused to disclose details of UK Reaper flights even thought it has done so previously for more than a decade.  It is likely that similar secrecy will surround Protector drone flights and sorties not only if they are deployed overseas but also if deployed within the UK.

Autonomous Collaborative Platforms: The UK’s New Autonomous Drones 

Chris Cole
BAE Systems concept for Tier 2 ACP

Following on from the MoD’s Defence Drone Strategy released in February (see our report here), the RAF has now published its ‘Autonomous Collaborative Platform Strategy’ as it works to develop, produce and deploy these new type of military drones.

The strategy defines Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) as types of uncrewed systems (drones) “which demonstrate autonomous behaviour and are able to operate in collaborative manner with other assets.”   The strategy argues that Reaper and the (soon-to-enter-service)  Protector drones “are vulnerable in warfighting conflicts involving peer or near-peer adversary. Therefore, as a priority the RAF needs to go beyond RPAS [Remotely Piloted Air Systems] to develop ACP capabilities.”

The plan argues that “through increasing use of autonomy, remote mission operators (commanders /supervisors) will be able to command an increasing number of AV [drones] within each ACP system.”

Underpinning the development, is the notion that the “geopolitical climate demands that we move beyond the caution of the post-cold war world” and that therefore the RAF must “undertake activity in areas that are demanding, difficult or overtly hostile.”   While the Strategy sets out a variety of tasks for these new drones, it makes clear that a key focus is on “overwhelming an adversary’s air defences.”  ACP are therefore not a defensive system, but are designed from the outset to enable the UK to engage in attack.

Tiers for Fears

The strategy sets out three ‘Tiers’ of ACP based on their ability to survive in “high-risk” (i.e. defended) environments:

  • Tier 1 ae disposable drones, with life-cycle of one or very few missions;
  • Tier 2 are “attritable” (or “risk tolerant”) that is, expected to survive but losses are acceptable;
  • Tier 3 are drones which have high strategic value, which if lost would significantly affect how the RAF will fight.
Diagram from Autonomous Collaborative Platform Strategy

Echoing the words of the Chief of the Air Staff Sir Richard Knighton before the Defence Select Committee earlier this year, the document states that a Tier 1 ACP will be operational “by the end of 2024”, while Tier 2 systems will be part of RAF combat force by 2030.  Read more →

MoD publish new UK ‘Drone Strategy’ and its embarrassing, superficial nonsense.

Chris Cole
Click to open

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) finally published its long-promised strategy on UK plans to be “a world leader in defence uncrewed systems’ and to say its underwhelming would be an understatement.  The document – stripping out graphics, self-promotional photographs and the glossary –  runs to around four pages, much of which is filled with management speak that would make David Brent wince.   Apparently, through “Pan-Defence Excellence” the MoD will be “enshrining the principle of iterative – or spiral – capability development” to create a more “predictable demand signal.”

In a nutshell, the (ahem) ‘strategy’ seems to be: ‘learning from the war in Ukraine we will work even closer with the defence industry’.  The Minister for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge and the Commander of Strategic Command, General Sir Jim Hockenhull announced the strategy at a press event at Malloy Systems, the drone company recently taken over by BAE Systems.

The strategy document contains no details about timescales, programmes, spending or even categories of uncrewed systems that the MoD will be focusing on.  The closest the document comes to any information on future plans is a bullet point that says “the RAF is testing cost-effective expendable Autonomous Collaborative Platforms.”  Another bullet point argues that “the army has a long history of uncrewed systems and development.”  Pretty sure someone should have at least added the word ‘chequered’ in there.

Drone Strategy launched at Malloy Systems. Credit: BAE Systems

Sifting through this thin gruel we can pick out one or two points.

  • In his Introduction, Minister for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge argues “it is in the uncrewed space that we will increasingly drive the mass of our forces…” Drones, in other words, are seen as a way of increasing the size and lethality of UK armed forces as personnel recruitment slumps and spending on big-ticket items eats up the budget.
  • There is a recognition that drone warfare is “not only here to stay but likely to increase as technology expands opportunities for [drone] employment.” This is due to the fact, argues the document, that “inexpensive commercial and military technologies have democratised [drone] employment.”  Drone warfare, it is acknowledged,  is no longer the preserve of larger Western states.
  • The strategy suggests that the “initial priority is the successful delivery of the Ukraine-UK uncrewed systems initiative.” Given that the current use of drones in this conflict is primarily small, first person view (FPV) drones or one-way attack drones, it is likely that funding of  new UK developments will be in this area.   Whether that will be effective for UK security needs is questionable to say the least.
  • The decline in transparency and debate about the development, use, legality and efficacy of drone warfare from the government is likely to continue. While,  the document pays lip-service  to “the importance of public engagement” on these issues and insists it is  “committed … to keeping the public informed of our progress and developments”  these lofty aims are caveated with need to protect “necessary operational sensitivity” and the requirement to “balance transparency with security.”

All in all, it is likely this strategy document will be put on a shelf and quickly forgotten.

Online meeting 29th November, 7pm: ‘Cyborg Dawn? The military use of human augmentation’

Chris Cole

 

Soldiers who see in the dark, communicate telepathically, or fly a drone by thought alone all sound like characters from a science fiction film. Yet research projects investigating all these possibilities are underway in laboratories and research centres around the globe as part of an upsurge of interest in the possibilities of human enhancement enabled largely by expanding knowledge in the field of neuroscience: the study of the human brain and nervous system.

Drone Wars UK and Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) are holding this online event to mark the publication of ‘Cyborg Dawn?‘, a new study investigating the military use of human augmentation, in order to increase understanding of the possibilities and hazards posed by human enhancement technology.

Speakers:

  • Peter Burt: Peter, a long-time researcher and campaigner on peace and human rights issues, authored the ‘Cyborg Dawn’ report. At Drone Wars UK he primarily works on issues relating to artificial intelligence and autonomy and their role in the future development of drones. Peter is also a Trustee the Nuclear Education Trust.
  • Ben Taylor-Green: Ben was awarded his DPhil from the University of Oxford in early 2023. His doctoral thesis, Empathic Predators: On the Affects and Optics of Brain-Computer Interface unmanned Aerial Vehicle Research is a pioneering philosophical anthropological inquiry concerning the dual use problem in international brain-computer interface (BCI) research.
  • Helen Close (Chair): Helen, a member of Drone Wars UK Steering Committee, is a Research Associate at the Omega Research Foundation, an NGO that researches the manufacture, trade in, and use of conventional arms and law enforcement equipment. She has worked at Omega since 2009 and works on number of issues including researching the manufacture of specific weapons of concern. Helen is a trustee of the Trust for Research and Education on the Arms Trade.

 

To attend this online event register here.

Click to view report

 

The UK, accountability for civilian harm, and autonomous weapon systems

Peter Burt
Second evidence session. Click to watch video

The second public session of the House of Lords inquiry into artificial intelligence (AI) in weapon systems took place at the end of March.  The session examined how the development and deployment of autonomous weapons might impact upon the UK’s foreign policy and its position on the global stage and heard evidence from Yasmin Afina, Research Associate at Chatham House, Vincent Boulanin, Director of Governance of Artificial Intelligence at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and Charles Ovink, Political Affairs Officer at United Nations Office for Disarmament.

Among the wide range of issues covered in the two-hour session was the question of who could be held accountable if human rights abuses were committed by a weapon system acting autonomously.  A revealing exchange took place between Lord Houghton, a former Chief of Defence Staff (the most senior officer of the UK’s armed forces), and Charles Ovink.  Houghton asked whether it might be possible for an autonomous weapon system to comply with the laws of war under certain circumstances (at 11.11 in the video of the session):

“If that fully autonomous system has been tested and approved in such a way that it doesn’t rely on a black box technology, that constant evaluation has proved that the risk of it non-complying with the parameters of international humanitarian law are accepted, that then there is a delegation effectively from a human to a machine, why is that not then compliant, or why would you say that that should be prohibited?”

This is, of course, a highly loaded question that assumes that a variety of improbable circumstances would apply, and then presents a best-case scenario as the norm.  Ovink carefully pointed out that any decision on whether such a system should be prohibited would be for United Nations member states to decide, but that the question posed ‘a big if’, and it was not clear what kind of test environment could mimic a real-life warzone with civilians present and guarantee that the laws of war would be followed.  Even if this was the case, there would still need to be a human accountable for any civilian deaths that might occur.  Read more →

Lords Committee on AI in Weapons Systems: AI harms, humans vs computers, and unethical Russians

Peter Burt
First evidence session. Click to watch video

A special investigation set up by the House of Lords is now taking evidence on the development, use and regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) in weapon systems.  Chaired by crossbench peer Lord Lisvane, a former Clerk of the House of  Commons, a stand-alone Select Committee is considering the utility and risks arising from military uses of AI.

The committee is seeking written evidence from members of the public and interested parties, and recently conducted the first of its oral evidence sessions.  Three specialists in international law, Noam Lubell of the University of Essex, Georgia Hinds, Legal Advisor at International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and Daragh Murray of Queen Mary University of London, answered a variety of questions about whether autonomous weapon systems might be able to comply with international law and how they could be controlled at the international level.

One of the more interesting issues raised during the discussion was the point that, regardless of military uses, AI has the potential to wreak a broad range of harms across society, and there is a need to address this concern rather than racing on blindly with the development and roll-out of ever more powerful AI systems.  This is a matter which is beginning to attract wider attention.  Last month the Future of Life Institute published an open letter calling for all AI labs to immediately pause the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months.  Over 30,000 researchers and tech sector workers have signed the letter to date, including Stuart Russell, Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, and Yuval Noah Harari.

Leaving aside whether six months could be long enough to resolve issues around AI safety, there is an important question to be answered here.  There are already numerous examples of cases where existing computerised and AI systems have caused harm, regardless of what the future might hold.  Why, then, are we racing forward in this field?  Has the combination of tech multinationals and unrestrained capitalism become such an unstoppable juggernaut that humanity is literally no longer able to control where the forces we have created are taking us?  If not, then why won’t governments intervene to put the brakes on the development and use of AI, and what interests are they actually working to protect?  This is unlikely to be a line of inquiry the Lords Committee will be pursuing.  Read more →