Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2005-2030 - Federation of ...

UAS ROADMAP 2005
flight. Figure 4.0-2 depicts where example UA stand in comparison to their ten levels of autonomy.
Autonomous Control Levels
Fully Autonomous Swarms
Group Strategic Goals
Distributed Control
Group Tactical Goals
Group Tactical Replan
Group Coordination
Onboard Route Replan
Adapt to Failures & Flight Conditions
Real Time Health/Diagnosis
Remotely Guided
1955
10
4.1 PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGIES
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8
7
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4
3
Global Hawk, Shadow,
ER/MP, and Fire Scout
2 Predator
1
Pioneer
UCAR Goal
J-UCAS Goal
1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015 2025
FIGURE 4.0-2. TREND IN UA AUTONOMY.
Although today's processors allow UA to fly entire missions with little or no human intervention, if the
ultimate goal is to replace a pilot with a mechanical facsimile of equal or superior thinking speed,
memory capacity, and responses (algorithms) gained from training and experience, then processors of
human-like speed, memory, and situational adaptability are necessary. Human capabilities are generally
agreed to equate to 100 million million-instructions-per-second (MIPS) in speed and 100 million
megabytes (MB) in memory. In the 1980s, AFRL attempted to develop a robotic adjunct to a fighter pilot
under the Pilot's Associate program, but the available processor technology proved insufficient.
Figures 4.1-1 and 4.1-2 illustrate the progress in processor technology toward human levels of
performance that has occurred and that are likely to be seen in the coming 25 years. Both show that
today's supercomputers' are within a factor of 10 of achieving human equivalence in speed and capacity
and could achieve human parity by the 2015 timeframe. The cost of a supercomputer is however
uncompetitive with that of a trained human, but by 2030 the cost of a 100 million MIP processor should
approach $10,000. As for inculcating a fighter pilot's training and experience into a robot brain, the
equivalent of Top Gun school for tomorrow's J-UCAS will consist of a post-flight download in seconds.
Today's silicon-based semiconductor processors will be limited to features about 0.1 micron in size, the
so-called "point one limit," by current manufacturing techniques based on ultraviolet lithography. Once
the limits of silicon semiconductors are reached, presumably in the 2015-2020 period, what are the
alternatives for developing more advanced processors? Just as computers have evolved from using
vacuum tubes to transistors to integrated circuits of semiconductors over the past 60 years, future ones
may progressively use optical, biochemical, quantum interference switching (QIS), and molecular
("moletronics") processors, or some combination of them, to achieve ever faster speeds and larger
memories. QIS offers a thousandfold increase in speed and moletronics a potential billionfold increase
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