The advent of unmanned systems reflects a huge aspect of warfare – that of protecting the warfighter – through the development of platforms that can be operated by humans from a distance, keeping them out of harm’s way.

As the U.S. Navy increases its investment in its fleet of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), suppliers of rugged commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) subsystems, providing solutions for mission computers, network switches, and routers, and data storage are meeting the needs of these unique platforms.

Military experts are developing new enabling technologies to help unmanned aircraft, ground vehicles, submarines, and surface vessels swarm and make decisions without human intervention.

In order to keep up with the continued acceleration of new technology and to be able to protect the warfighter from the latest threats, it is essential that we can turn our deployed platforms into adaptable entities that can evolve over time and are not static. The SOSA [Sensor Open Systems Architecture] Technical Standard is the next major step in realizing this goal.

Size, weight, power consumption, and cooling technologies today block quantum computing from the embedded world, but new generations should yield advances in artificial intelligence and computer security.

In the defense industry, AI is on the path to becoming a loyal companion to the warfighter and manufacturers alike. As technology progresses, so does the range of defense capabilities that AI could not only supplement but eventually manage.

The latest generation of unmanned vehicles operating on land, in the air, and at sea no longer simply are remotely operated. These advanced systems have built-in intelligence to learn from their experiences and make their own decisions.

Industry experts say open standards are helping drive development in small-form-factor battlefield and aerospace hardware like system-on-chip and single-board computers.