Covering everything from space warfare and printed drones to digital manufacturing and the skills gap, Aerospace and Defence Week took place at Engineering Futures last week (25-29 November).
Here are key messages from three of the nine expert-led Engineering Futures webinars, which are available to watch on-demand now.
Satellites could soon be weaponised
Modern society is completely dependent on space-based services, including satellite-enabled communication and navigation. Yet these vital assets are incredibly vulnerable and susceptible to both “kinetic and non-kinetic” attacks, including cyber-threats, according to Stephanie Ayres, head of policy at the UKspace trade association.
Covering the potential for space-based conflicts, including both inadvertent damage or deliberate attacks, Ayres was asked about the possibility of satellite-launched weapons targeting ground-based targets in the next five years. Placing weapons in space is forbidden, and also quite difficult, she said – but that does not mean that satellites are outside the scope of space warfare.
“You could probably have much more effective damage by just crashing your satellite into another one,” she said. “If we look at that as a weapon in space, I'd say that's highly likely. That might also be difficult to attribute, given so many accidental proximity issues.
“In terms of a weapon that goes from space to ground, there is laser technology, which is used in optical technologies, which are used in the communications side of things. They could theoretically be upgraded to a level where they could make damage on the ground, disrupt an electric system or whatever.
“But again, that's quite hard work. You could do it more easily if you were just on Earth, and fire a ground-based weapon.”
Drones are finding more uses – and 3D printing can help
The drone market has taken off in recent years. One major driver was legislation from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that expanded commercial drone usage, said Clara Quinquilla, industrial segment manager at HP. Affordability, technological advancements – including specialised software and better batteries – and the demand for data have also driven growth, she added.
Now used in everything from agriculture to medical deliveries, ‘drone shows’ to warfare, a wide variety of designs are built and sold around the world – and, Quinquilla said, additive manufacturing can help companies rapidly prototype then produce their drones.
“I have been having the opportunity to work really closely with different start-ups and companies in the drone space, and they all are trying to find the perfect solution for what they are designing,” she said.
“This means, of course, the need of iterating the design over and over, optimising the parts even more, over and over. So at the end, they need to have a way to rapidly produce these parts, in order to fail fast and get on track again.”
We’re not ready for autonomous weapons
From optimised route creation to enhanced safety, AI could have a wide number of aerospace and defence applications in the coming years. Critical defence-related decision making is one area where full autonomy is not yet ready for integration however, said Alistair Saddington, professor of defence aeronautics at Cranfield University.
“Systems are evolving, and they probably aren't particularly robust, and they are fallible, so integrating them into systems which are life dependent becomes very challenging,” he said.
A parliamentary report concluded that lethal autonomous weapon systems (AWS) cannot yet be introduced into a defence environment without human control, he continued. “What point are we going to be confident enough to incorporate these types of systems into a battlespace environment?”
He added: “The validation that a system is working as intended becomes very difficult… so I think the answer to the question is we're probably not ready at the moment.” AI could nonetheless have a role to play in non-safety critical areas, he said.
All sessions from Aerospace and Defence Week 2024 are now available to watch on-demand. Register for free now to watch and share videos.
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