The rapid development of small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) is driving the exponential growth of the commercial sector. This poses an asymmetrical threat when UAS are potentially used for attacks while the current defense capabilities are inefficient. While expert knowledge in operation of UAS has been necessary in the past, nowadays commercial products are well established and can be much easier used for potential attacks. Furthermore, current technology prognoses predict that UAS will have even more autonomy in the next evolutionary step. Taking this, and the continuously changing threat situations, into account makes consideration of UAS as potential thread crucial. Especially in the civil sector this problem has been insufficiently addressed by research and industry so far. Thus, there are no satisfactory solutions available today.
Based on the findings of the G7-Gipfeltreffen 2015 and the Bilderbergtreffen 2015, where public stakeholders were involved, technological, legal as well as ethical challenges were identified. In the proposed project, these findings as well as results from ongoing projects provide the basis for further research and development on the identified challenges using relevant scenarios from authorities. The main goal of the proposed project is the holistic analysis of threads imposed by UAS from technological, legal as well as ethical aspects. From the technology point of view the project focuses on semantic scene understanding, scene interpretation as well as detection of potential threads using artificial intelligence. This information will be used for development of semi-automatic tools which ease decision making for authorities as well as for identification and development of proper measures for situation-dependent active intervention. From the ethical and legal point of view, the project will evaluate how intervention by authorities is possible to reduce potential threads while keeping in compliance with the law. The results are shown in authority relevant scenarios by providing a functional technology carrier.
Partners
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
Frequentis AG
CNS-Solutions & Support GmbH
IGASPIN GmbH
INRAS GmbH
Johannes Kepler Universität
RIEGL Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
Austro Control Österreichische Gesellschaft für Zivilluftfahrt mbH
Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie
Bundesministerium für Inneres
Bundesministerium für Landesverteidigung und Sport
Bundesministerium für Justiz
Contact
Christoph Sulzbachner
Senior Research Engineer
Autonomous Systems
Center for Vision, Automation & Control
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
Giefinggasse 4 | 1210 Vienna | Austria
T +43 50550-4177 | M +43 664 8251342
christoph.sulzbachner@ait.ac.at | www.ait.ac.at
