Will development of good AI routines be beneficial for developing an UAV?

[Skarphol]

Hi!

I was reading a piece on UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) and UCAVs the other day, and started thinking: Would a company who developes UAVs and UCAVs be interrested in the AI that Oleg and similar developers are creating for games like SOW?
Is there any similarities?
I would suppose so; does anyone know?

Skarphol

(By the way; the russian airforce does not field UAV's, the russian army use Israel-built UAV's. Maybe Oleg has been delayed in development of SOW because he has been drafted by the russian airforce to program UAVs?? That last part is only speculative and not backed by any facts, rumors or post on obscure forums what so ever)

[SlipBall]

Originally Posted by Skarphol

Hi!

I was reading a piece on UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) and UCAVs the other day, and started thinking: Would a company who developes UAVs and UCAVs be interrested in the AI that Oleg and similar developers are creating for games like SOW?
Is there any similarities?
I would suppose so; does anyone know?

Skarphol

(By the way; the russian airforce does not field UAV's, the russian army use Israel-built UAV's. Maybe Oleg has been delayed in development of SOW because he has been drafted by the russian airforce to program UAVs?? That last part is only speculative and not backed by any facts, rumors or post on obscure forums what so ever)

I might be getting your question wrong, so sorry if that's the case. But I think that all the UAV's use a camera and a guy sitting in a comand center with a joystick, gps, guages and the like.

[Skarphol]

OK, I'm thinking of UAV's that travel autonomiously 'on their own'. They are getting an assigned area to monitor and then they just go there and survey that area, regardless of weather etc. Not necessarily military activity, but monitoring of pollution etc.
I think there are planes that actually flies themselves.
But of course, there are a lot of UAV, like Predator etc. that are 'flown' by personell on the ground. Not by joystick, but they are given orders as to where to go, where to direct their cameras etc.

Skarphol

[Letum]

Autonomous vehicles don't face the same challenges as AIs in games.

The main challenge for real autonomous vehicles is situational awareness.
In a game this isn't a problem as the program tells the AI what is a enemy/friend/plane/bush/ground/runway. Real world AIs struggle with this kind of thing a lot.

Flight routines are simple compared to these challenges.

[Valtyr]

Being that I am trained to pilot (Small)Suav's myself I can tell you it would have to be some smart AI to do all the piloting. Whem the UAV is in the air for a routine patrol for example, often times you spot people or points of interest all of a sudden, sometimes you fly over a spot on a hunch. A AI could not react to a hunch because well, it doesn't have that capabilty. However UAV's can use waypoints and such to fly on autopilot, loiter and hold altidude. Forgive the horrible spelling, i'm writing this on my phone.

[Feuerfalke]

Different goals and different problems.

In contrast to the real world, a plane in a game flies in a virtual environment. Everything put into the game is calculated and therefore for terms of simplicity transfered into the AI-routines as necessary. No need to adopt to unknown territory or obstacles.
A simple example: When Flak fires at an AI-plane, it can be noted by simply setting a variable, telling the AI it is under fire. Another example is the spider-sense in IL2 that warns an AI pilot as soon as a fighter is in a given distance. In the real world, the AI would have to be able to interpret sensors to even identify such a threat and out of the masses of information gained from the sensors and that is a difficult task.

On the virtual battlefield, the AI also tries to incorporate human behavior. SoW will even incorporate fear, fatigue, aggressiveness, skill, etc. That's exactly the points you want to eliminate for autonomous RL planes.

[Bobb4]

Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

Different goals and different problems.

In contrast to the real world, a plane in a game flies in a virtual environment. Everything put into the game is calculated and therefore for terms of simplicity transfered into the AI-routines as necessary. No need to adopt to unknown territory or obstacles.
A simple example: When Flak fires at an AI-plane, it can be noted by simply setting a variable, telling the AI it is under fire. Another example is the spider-sense in IL2 that warns an AI pilot as soon as a fighter is in a given distance. In the real world, the AI would have to be able to interpret sensors to even identify such a threat and out of the masses of information gained from the sensors and that is a difficult task.

On the virtual battlefield, the AI also tries to incorporate human behavior. SoW will even incorporate fear, fatigue, aggressiveness, skill, etc. That's exactly the points you want to eliminate for autonomous RL planes.

You know this site is going down hill when we move from talking IL2/SOW to UAV's

[Feuerfalke]

Lol

[Skarphol]

Weeelll, there isn't too much to talk about on this site anyway, reading the same repeated questions over and over again is boring and futile, and besides; there is a lot of people with insight into aviation hanging around here, so I gave it a go.

I guess you guys are right about different problems and different solutions with UAV development and AI developent.

I'm really curious about the AI in BOB. I think IL-2 must have had some of the better AI behaviour in a flightsim, but I haven't spent much time on other flightsims, though. Just som AEW and MSCFS..

Skarphol

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by Valtyr

Being that I am trained to pilot (Small)Suav's myself I can tell you it would have to be some smart AI to do all the piloting. Whem the UAV is in the air for a routine patrol for example, often times you spot people or points of interest all of a sudden, sometimes you fly over a spot on a hunch. A AI could not react to a hunch because well, it doesn't have that capabilty. However UAV's can use waypoints and such to fly on autopilot, loiter and hold altidude. Forgive the horrible spelling, i'm writing this on my phone.

hiya Valtyr,

why are those unmanned drones not used more extensively in afghanistan ?

when you look at documentaries like "ross kemp in afghanisthan" (a brittish reporter with a camera crew embedded with UK troops), you can see the infantry soldiers are in constant danger of ambush, and once they engage the enemy it is a very defensive procedure for them where they call in artillery support from their fire bases or need to call in fast air to drop laser guided munitions on a specific building or suspected taliban position (with a high risk of friendly fire)

on the rare occasion those brittish troops were able to get a helicopter to provide support, the whole tactical situation changed and the engaged taliban stopped fighting to try and not attract attention to their position and suffer the wrath of a well armed attack helicopter (and there seemed to be a significant lack of availability in helicopters to provide support for infantry foot patrols)

it would seem to me that a handfull of armed drones (both as small armed planes or helicopters) accompanying those foot patrols would immediately significantly change the situation on the ground for the infantry soldiers and make them more effective and reduce casualties, but i never heard of any mention of them for use in those situations. it cant only be an issue of high cost, these same infantry men often seem to fire multiple javelin shoulder held missiles on a patrol (at 50.000 $ per unit i believe). using these armed drones in much higher numbers would seem to me to be the next level in fighting tools that a modern army needs

any thoughts why they are not yet used in high numbers in day to day ground operations like that ?