Tag Archives: 3D printing

Deglobalization Will Change the Mission of Naval Forces

The following article is adapted from a report for the Institute for International Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, International Studies, Will Technological Convergence Reverse Globalization?

By T. X. Hammes

Since the end of World War II, the United States has consistently supported greater global integration. U.S. leaders saw this as the route to both prosperity and security. After the shock of Korea, the United States consistently forward deployed its armed forces to support this policy. The following decades of increasing global trade seem to validate this strategy. However from 2011 to 2014, manufacturing trade as a percentage of GDP actually flattened and then declined from 2011 to 2014. Services and financial flows followed the same pattern. In its 2016 report, Mackenzie Global Institute reported, “After 20 years of rapid growth, traditional flows of goods, services, and finance have declined relative to GDP.”

hammes figure 1

Figure 11

Figure 2 Hammes

Figure 3 Hammes

Many analysts contend these are short term trends and soon trade will resume growing. In contrast, this article will argue that the convergence of new technologies is dramatically changing how we make things, what we make, and where we make them. These technologies plus trends in energy production, agriculture, politics, and internet governance will result in the localization of manufacturing, services, energy, and food production. This shift will significantly change the international security environment and in particular the role of the U.S. naval forces.

How We Make Things

The cost advantages derived from the combination of robotics, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing is driving production to automated factories. According to Boston Consulting Group, about 10 percent of all manufacturing is currently automated, but this will rise to 25 percent by 2025. This is only the very front end of the shift of labor to automation. A Price Waterhouse Cooper survey showed 94 percent of CEOs who had robots say the robots increased productivity.

Even as robots are changing traditional manufacturing, 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is creating entirely new ways to manufacture a rapidly expanding range of products – from medical devices to aircraft parts to buildings. In April 2016, Carbon3D released the first commercial version of a machine that prints 100 times faster than its predecessors.

Commercial firms are exploiting these advances. United Parcel Service established a fully-automated facility with 100 3D printers to manufacture one-off parts or mass produce thousands of the same part. “UPS can see a major change coming. The concept is simple, local production of a vast number of components will hit the international shipping market hard.”

In fact, Price Waterhouse Cooper surveyed over 100 industrial manufacturers and reported that fifty-two percent of the CEOs surveyed expect 3D printing to be used for high volume production in the next 3-5 years. 

What We Will Make

3D printing will have two other major impacts — mass customization and design for purpose. Rather than stocking the wide variety of parts in the spectrum of colors and finishes they use, a range of industries are looking to maintain only digital files and print on demand. More revolutionary, designers can now design an object to optimally fulfill its purpose rather than to meet manufacturing limitations. General Electric replaced jet engine fuel nozzles made from 18 smaller parts with a single, lighter, stronger, longer lasting, and cheaper 3D printed part.

3D printing can also increase the strength of a product through honeycomb construction, like that of bird bones. Very difficult to make with traditional manufacturing, 3D printing can make them with relative ease. Further, 3D printing can create gradient alloys which expand the material properties of the product. 3D printing can actually improve the performance of existing materials. 3D printed ceramics can have 10 times the compressive strength of commercially available ceramics, tolerate higher temperatures, and be printed in complex lattices, further increasing the strength to weight ratio.

Where We Make Things

The combination of robotics, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing means “on-shoring,” returning manufacturing to the home market, is increasing rapidly. In 2015 survey of CEOs, Boston Consulting Group noted

            –a 17 percent increase in the number that report they are actively reshoring now, which is 2.5 times the number actively reshoring in 2012.

            –31 percent would put new capacity to serve the U.S. in the U.S. versus 20 percent who would choose China.  A reversal from 2 years ago when China was favored 30 percent to 20 percent.

            –71 percent believe that advanced manufacturing technologies will improve the economics of localized production.

The trends noted in Boston Consulting Group’s survey are reflected in the reversal of manufacturing job trends over the past two decades. The United States lost manufacturing jobs every year from 1998 to 2009 — a total of 8 million jobs. But in the last six years, it regained about 1 million of them.

Co-location reduces shipping and inventory costs. It also allows closer interaction between design and manufacturing which speeds the design, test, build, employ, and improve cycle. General Electric just finished building an Advanced Manufacturing Works right next to a large manufacturing plant to both take advantage of proximity and learn more about how to maximize that benefit.

Hal Sirkin, an analyst with Boston Consulting, predicts “you’re going to see more localization rather than more scale… I can put up a plant, change the software and manufacture all sorts of things, not in the hundreds of millions but runs of five million or ten million.” The bottom line is that more and more products will be produced locally, which will steadily reduce the need for international trade in manufactured goods.

Service Industries Are Coming Home Too

Service industries are following suit as artificial intelligence takes over more high order tasks. Pairing AI with humans has resulted in lower costs (fewer humans) and higher customer satisfaction for United Services Automobile Association’s call center.

Nor is artificial intelligence limited to routine call center tasks. This year the Georgia Institute of Technology employed a software program named “Jill Watson” as a teaching assistant for an online course without telling the students. All of the students rated Ms. Watson as a very effective teaching assistant. None guessed she wasn’t human. Baker & Hostetler, a law firm, announced it has hired her ‘brother,’ Ross, also based on Watson, as a lawyer for its bankruptcy practice.

Artificial intelligence is already handling tasks formerly assigned to associate lawyers, new accountants, new reporters, new radiologists, and many other specialties. In short, non-routine tasks – whether manual or cognitive – will still be done by humans while routine tasks – even cognitive ones – will be done by machines.  And this is not a new phenomenon, computer technology has been eating jobs since 1990. 

Figure 4 Hammes

With labor costs much less of an issue, better communications links, better infrastructure, more attractive business conditions, and effective intellectual properly enforcement, services are returning to developed nations. The few, more complex questions that require human operators are better handled by native language speakers intimately familiar with the culture. 

Only the First Step?

The changes in manufacturing and services may be only the first step in de-globalization. Electric/hybrid vehicles, alternative energy technologies, and increased energy efficiency are reducing the global movement of coal and oil. While starting from a small base, renewable energy — wind, solar, thermal — is growing very rapidly.  In 2014, 58.5 percent of all new additions to global power systems were renewables. In 2015, 68 percent of the new capacity installed in the United States was renewable. As vehicle fuel efficiency, hybrids, and all-electric vehicles improve, Wood Mackenzie suggests that U.S. gasoline demand could fall from 9.3 million barrels/day to 6.5 million barrels/day by 2035. Fracking, alternative energy, and new efficiencies have already dramatically reduced the U.S. need for imported energy. If other nations can make similar advances in these areas, it will slow and then reduce the global trade in gas and oil.

Agriculture is another area that has seen increased global trade over the last few decades. High value fruits, vegetables, and flowers move from nations with favorable growing conditions to those without. However, indoor farming has begun to undercut this trade by providing locally produced, fresher, organic products. Depending on the product, such farms can produce 11-15 crop cycles per year. A facility in Tokyo produces 30,000 heads of lettuce per day and plans a second plant to produce 500,000 head of lettuce daily within 5 years. Now that the concept has been proven, Japanese firms are putting 211 unused factories into food production.

The industry is not restricted to Japan. A firm in the United States is planning to establish 75 indoor factory farms. Similar urban farms are being built across Europe and Russia. These indoor farms do not require herbicides or pesticides, use 97 percent less water, waste 50 percent less food, use 40 percent less power, reduce fertilizer use, reduce shipping costs, and are not subject to weather irregularities. Scaled-up, these processes will seriously reduce the market for long-range shipping of high value agricultural products. Japanese firms are even experimenting with growing rice in a number of their facilities. 

All of the factors listed above are being reinforced by social pressures to “buy local” to reduce the environmental impact of production. Local production both creates jobs near the consumer and dramatically reduces transportation energy and packaging waste. Indoor farming can almost eliminate the environmental impact of farming on land and waterways.   

A further driver of global fragmentation is the effort by authoritarian governments to segment the internet.  Initially considered an impossible goal, China has steadily improved its ability to control what people can access inside its territory. Totalitarian nations have decided the costs of connectivity exceed the benefits of globalization. Restricted access to the internet will inevitably reduce these nations’ participation in the global economy.

Cumulative Effects

The key question is how much will the sum of shifts in manufacturing, automation of services, localization of power, and food production reduce globalization. Localizing production will dramatically reduce traffic in components and finished manufactured products thus disrupting established trade patterns. Currently we ship raw materials to one country. It puts together the sub-assemblies, packs them, and ships them to another country for assembly. There they complete the assembly and packaging, then ship the packaged product onward to the consuming country. With the emergence of 3D manufacturing, we will ship smaller quantities of raw materials to a point near the consumer, produce them, and then ship them short distances for consumption. Thus reducing international trade. The localization of energy production and return of high value agriculture to developed nations will further reduce global trade.

Other factors are slowing globalization. First, protectionism is growing. Since 2008, more than 3,500 protectionist measures and administrative requirements have been instituted globally. As technology eliminates jobs, the political pressure for protectionism will rise. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Its Atlantic counterpart, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is still being negotiated but faces growing political opposition on both sides of the Atlantic. Brexit probably has killed it.

American policy makers and economists still believe global trade is essential. But according to a recent Pew poll, only 17 percent of Americans thought it leads to higher wages, only 20 percent believed it created new jobs. 

Implications for National Security

Since 1945, the United States has pursued globalization for both economic and security reasons. Today, the economic premise of globalization is being challenged by a wide range of political actors. Thus, whichever party wins the next election will likely encourage each of the trends discussed in this paper with tax breaks, trade policy, and administrative actions. The cumulative effect will be to discourage and undermine the case for globalization while potentially strengthening the U.S.-Canada-Mexico trading bloc. Similar pressures may drive nations across the globe to regional trade blocks.

In turn, if globalization no longer has major economic benefits for the United States, then employing U.S. power in an effort to maintain global security will be seen purely as a cost. This will create a very different domestic environment for the practice of U.S. foreign policy. Deglobalization will reduce the American people’s interest in propping up global stability at exactly the time the widespread dissemination of smart, cheap weapons will significantly increase the costs of doing so. Faced with growing social and infrastructure needs, Americans may no longer be willing to underwrite international security with their blood and treasure.

Turning isolationist would reverse over 60 years of American foreign and security policy and radically alter the international security picture. Europeans, already struggling with the implications of Brexit, will have to determine which threat – mass migration or Russian expansion – is the greater one and how they will reach agreement on allocation of security resources. 

Asian nations will also face a very different environment. American presence in Asia has been seen as the major provider of stability and peace for the region. Given China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea, the biggest question for Asian nations will be how to prevent Chinese domination. In a region with no history of military security alliances, the challenges will be extensive. Some Asian states have the capability to rapidly develop nuclear weapons and may choose to do so to provide nuclear deterrence. 

Role of Seaborne Trade in a Regionalized World

Deglobalization will take a decade or two and while it will result in major decreases in international trade, it will not eliminate it entirely. From the U.S. point of view, the import of raw materials and the export of bulk energy, food, and manufactured goods will remain economically important. However, maritime strategists should understand the relatively low percentage of U.S. GDP this represents. In 2014, the United States exported over $1.5 trillion of its $18 trillion GDP. Canada and Mexico accounted for about 35 percent of the total, with most of it shipped overland. The other 65 percent was broadly distributed globally. While 75 percent of those exports by weight were seaborne only 33 percent of exports by value were. This means just under 2 percent of the GDP of the United States was exported by sea and just over 3 percent by air. While mariners faithfully repeat the mantra that 90% of U.S. goods travel by sea, we fail to see the relatively low value to our economy. Thus sustaining support for a global Navy in times of reduced budgets and isolationist sentiment will be a real challenge. Nor will the fact that we import $2.2 trillion per year be a useful argument if isolationist tendencies continue to dominate the political sphere.

So What For The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps

A couple of decades may seem adequate time to prepare if isolationism does come about. It is in fact a very short time for the Department of the Navy. Most of the procurement budgets for the next two decades are effectively obligated to existing and planned programs such as the Ford class, the F-35, and the SSBN replacement. Thus the services must think through how their roles and missions may change in such a future.

Maintaining nuclear deterrence will remain the highest defense priority. However, the combined cost of replacing the triad may force the United States to reconsider whether it needs all three legs. The Navy must be prepared to articulate why the submarine leg of the triad remains important – and deal with the concerns about increasing transparency of the oceans.

In an isolationist America, the next highest priority is likely to be defense of the hemisphere or at least the North American trading block (U.S.-Canada-Mexico). This will require an integrated air, sea, and sub-surface defense of the territory and waters of the region. It will also include protection of undersea fiber optic networks. 

A secondary mission will remain the protection of U.S. trade. Even with these increases in manufacturing and energy exports, U.S. exports will likely remain well less than 10 percent of our national economy. Further, these exports will be focused on developed nations in Asia and Europe perhaps reducing the need for naval forces in other regions. Thus the current emphasis on intensive and extensive engagement with navies around the world will be significantly reduced. However, as always, naval forces will often be the force of choice for protection of U.S. facilities or evacuation of U.S. citizens overseas and this will require forward deployed forces.

In an isolationist future, America will not conduct major land campaigns overseas unless absolutely forced to by strategic need. If America chooses to do so, Navy and Marine forces may be the force of choice for initial deployment. The continuance of the small, smart and many revolution means naval forces will have to rethink how they fight. As Professor and retired U.S. Navy Captain Robert C. Rubel noted in 2013,

“Given the increasing sophistication of defenses and the growing expensiveness (and thus smaller numbers) of traditional strike platforms, such as tactical aircraft, the answer to this problem will increasingly involve new kinds of missiles and other unmanned systems. If the Navy, along with the other services, can evolve to a predominantly missile-based, aggression-disruption posture, U.S. influence may be manifested in the inability of unwillingness of dissatisfied power to try to overturn the international order, either regionally or globally, via military means.”

Thus rather than projecting power to dissuade, enemy naval forces might turn to disrupting the opponent’s ability to project power. The convergence of technologies – artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D manufacturing, and drones – will provide thousands of autonomous weapons able to reach out hundreds of miles and even a few that will range thousands of miles. In short, A2/AD will become much more effective and powerful. Fortunately, it can work both ways; strategic geography heavily favors the United States in any contest with China.

A new, old mission may also evolve – Marine Defense Battalions. Developed prior to WWII, they were formed to rapidly establish anti-air and coastal artillery on critical islands. With the exponential increase in range of drones, ASCMs, cruise and ballistic missiles as well as self-deploying sea mines, such forces could create sea denial areas reaching hundreds of miles into the surrounding waters or close maritime chokepoints. These units could be employed in the first island chain to force the Chinese to fight hard if they want to exit the South or East China Seas. Further, they can be used as models for partner and allied nations that wish to build a relatively inexpensive A2/AD capability to raise the cost to China if it attempts to bully them.

Summary

Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum writes, “The speed of the current breakthroughs has no historical precedent. When compared with previous industrial revolutions, the Fourth is evolving at an exponential rather than a linear pace. Moreover, it is disrupting almost every industry in every country. And the breadth and depth of these changes herald the transformation of entire systems of production, management, and governance.”

The 4th Industrial Revolution will unfold over the next couple of decades, bringing amazing advances in manufacturing and services. There is no doubt the global economy will change in many ways. Manufacturing, services, energy, and agriculture all seem to be moving to localized production. The net effect is slowing and may be reversing globalization. Obviously, this is not a certainty but it is a strong possibility supported by technical, social, and political trends. If this is happening, the basic assumptions undergirding sixty years of post-World War II prosperity and security will change too. Thus the fundamental assumptions about the role of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps must also change. As part of their continuing efforts to understand the future, the services must add this possible future and explore what it means.

Dr. T. X. Hammes is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the U. S. National Defense University. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. government. An extended version of this article is available here

Endnotes

1. World Bank, “Trade ( percent of GDP), http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NE.TRD.GNFS.ZS/countries/1W-CN-US?display=graph, accessed Mar 29, 2016.

2. World Bank, “Merchandise trade ( percent of GDP), http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TG.VAL.TOTL.GD.ZS/countries?display=graph, accessed Mar 29, 2016. 

3. Matthieu Bussiere, Julia Schmidt, Natacha Valla,  International Financial Flows in the New Normal: Key Patterns (and Why We Should Care), CEPII, Mar 2016, p.5,  http://www.cepii.fr/PDF_PUB/pb/2016/pb2016-10.pdf, accessed May 26, 2016.

4. Maximiliano Dvorkin, “Job Involving Routine Tasks Aren’t Growing,” St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/january/jobs-involving-routine-tasks-arent-growing, accessed May 25, 2016.

Featured Image: Mariners aboard MSC-chartered cargo ships MV BBC Seattle and MV Marstan conduct cargo operations in Talamone Bay, Italy. (U.S. Navy photo by Matthew Sweeney)

Call for Articles: Future of Naval Aviation Week, Sep 14-18

Week Dates: 14-18 Sept 15
Articles Due: 9 Sept 15
Article Length: 500-1500 Words
Submit to: nextwar(at)cimsec(dot)org

Back in January, CAPT Jerry Hendrix (USN, Ret) and CDR Bryan McGrath (USN, Ret) had a stirring debate on the future of Aircraft Carriers. However, the debate quickly shifted from the carrier itself to the nature of the airwing it carried. Indeed, the carrier is nothing more than a host for the platforms provided by naval aviation – and only one of many ships that can carry aviation assets.

That discussion, driving into the world of the carrier air wing, was the inspiration for this week of discussion on naval aviation in general. From the maritime patrol aircraft deployed from the reclaimed Chinese reefs in the South China Sea, to US Army Apaches operating from amphibious assault ships, to 3-D printed drones flown off a Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel, to manned and unmanned ideas for the carrier air wing as carriers proliferate around the Pacific  -we want your ideas and observations on where global naval aviation will and can go next.

How will the littoral navies of the world change with new, lower-cost unmanned aviation assets? Are carriers armed with legions of long-range unmanned drones the future for global powers – will these technologies exponentially increase the importance of smaller carriers – or is unmanned technology a limited path that may be resisted (rightfully?) by pilots and their communities? Will surface fleets embrace the potential from easily produced drone swarms deployed from ships of the line… should they? What is the future of land-based naval aviation? What innovations will be ignored, what will be embraced, and what will the air assets of future fleets around the world look like? What will the institutions, the leadership, and C2 structures that support all these assets of their varied nations look like? The topic is purposefully broad to bring forward a myriad of topics and inspire future topic weeks on more specific subjects.

Contributions should be between 500 and 1500 words in length and submitted no later than 9 September 2015. Publication reviews will also be accepted. This project will be co-edited by LT Wick Hobson (USN) and, as always, Sally DeBoer from our editorial pool.

Matthew Hipple, President of CIMSEC, is a US Navy Surface Wafare Officer and graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He hosts the Sea Control podcast and regularly jumps the fence to write for USNI and War on the Rocks.

Print, Plug, and Play Robotics

William Selby is a Marine Officer who previously completed studies at the US Naval Academy and MIT researching robotics. The views and opinions expressed in this article are his own.

In September 1999, NASA lost a $125 million Mars orbiter because a contracted engineering team used English units of measurement while NASA’s team used the metric system for a key spacecraft operation.[i] In everyday life we are forced to choose between differing formats with the same function. What was once VHS vs. Betamax became Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. A lack of component standardization can reduce the operational effectiveness of a system as shown by the NASA orbiter. More commonly, the end user may waste resources purchasing multiple components that serve the same purpose, as was the case for DVD players in the late 2000s. These same issues are occurring in the development, procurement, and operation of our unmanned systems. Over the last decade, the US military has amassed large numbers of unmanned systems composed of highly proprietary hardware and software components. However, future unmanned systems designed with interoperable hardware and software and constructed utilizing advanced manufacturing techniques will operate more effectively and efficiently than today’s platforms.

 

Advances in manufacturing techniques as well as efforts to standardize software and hardware development are being pursued in order to diminish the negative effects caused by proprietary components in unmanned systems. These new technologies focus on speed and customization, creating a new and evolving research, development, and production methodology. Modular designs increase the rate of production and upgrades while new manufacturing techniques enable rapid prototyping and fabrication on the front lines. Replacement parts can be stored digitally, produced on demand, and swapped between unmanned systems, reducing the system’s logistical footprint. This organic production capability will enable units to tailor manufacturing needs to match operational requirements. The resulting unmanned systems will operate with interchangeable payloads making them quick to adapt to a dynamic environment while common software will enable easier control of the vehicles and wider data dissemination.

 

Complementary Technologies

 

The concept of interoperable hardware and software is more formally referred to as open architecture (OA). DOD Directive 5000.1, “The Defense Acquisition System,” outlines the DOD’s goal to acquire systems that can be easily swapped between unmanned systems similar to the way different types of USB devices can be swapped out on a personal computer. [ii] This ranges from swapping sensor payloads between platforms to entire unmanned systems between services and countries.[iii] Establishing standards and creating policy for OA are the responsibilities of multiple organizations. For unmanned aerial systems (UASs), the Interoperability Integrated Product Team (I-IPT) drafts UAS System Interoperability Profiles (USIPs). Similarly, the Robotic Systems Joint Program Office (RS JPO) creates Interoperability Profiles (IOPs) to identify and define interoperability standards for unmanned ground systems. Several of the IOP standards have been adopted for unmanned maritime systems by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.[iv]

 

Advances in manufacturing techniques complement and leverage the OA concept. In general, these techniques focus on converting a digital blueprint of a component into its physical form. The advantages of additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, have been recently publicized as well as potential military applications.[v],[vi],[vii],[viii] 3D printing creates the desired object in metal or plastic by converting liquid or powdered raw materials into a thin solid layer, forming a single layer at a time until the piece is completed. Less mature technologies include Printed Circuit Microelectromechanical Systems (PC-MEMS) uses 3D printing to create a flat object of rigid and flexible materials with special joints that are later activated turning the flat object into a three-dimensional object much like a children’s pop up book. [ix],[x] A final technique inspired by origami involves etching crease patterns into flat sheets of metal allowing them to be quickly folded and assembled into complex components. [xi]

 

Lifecycle Impacts

 

Production of future unmanned systems will be altered by these technologies beginning with the initial system requirements.[xii] Standard capability descriptors minimize the need for a single, large business to create and entire unmanned system. This will allow small businesses to focus research and development on a single capability that can be integrated into multiple platforms requiring that capability thereby increasing competition and innovation while reducing initial procurement costs.[xiii],[xiv] These unmanned systems will be easily upgradeable since payloads, sensors, and software are anticipated to evolve much faster than the base platforms.[xv] Open hardware and software ensures that upgrades can be designed knowing the component will function successfully across multiple platforms. Advanced manufacturing techniques will enhance the development of these upgrades by allowing companies to rapidly prototype system components for immediate testing and modification. Companies can digitally simulate their component to verify their design before mass producing a final version with more cost effective traditional manufacturing techniques. The final version can then be digitally distributed enabling the end user to quickly load the most recent version before production.

 

These technologies also have the potential to significantly impact supply chain management and maintenance procedures required for unmanned systems. Since components can be swapped across multiple platforms, it will no longer be necessary to maintain independent stocks of proprietary components unique to each platform. If a component can be created using organic advanced manufacturing techniques, only the digital blueprint and raw materials need to be available. While the strength of components created using additive manufacturing may not be enough for a permanent replacement, temporary spare parts can be created in a remote area without quick access to supplies or depot repair facilities while permanent replacements are delivered. This reduces the logistical footprint and maintenance costs by limiting the number of parts and raw materials required to be physically stored for each system.

 

Most importantly, these technologies will produce unmanned systems with the operational flexibility necessary for the unknown conflicts of the future. Components ranging from power systems to sensor payloads can be quickly and easily swapped between platforms of varying vendors, selected to fit the mission requirements and replaced as the situation develops.[xvi]Standardizing the sensor’s data transmission format and metadata will generate timely and accurate data that is more easily accessed and navigated by all interested parties.[xvii] An early example of these advancements, the Army’s One System Remote Video Terminal, allows the user to receive real time video footage from multiple platform types as well as control the sensor payload.[xviii],[xix] Digital libraries will close the gap between developer and user ensuring the most recent component design is manufactured or the latest software capability is downloaded and transferred across platforms.[xx] Standardized communications protocols between the platform and the controller will enable a single controller to operate different platforms, as recently demonstrated by the Office of Naval Research.[xxi] Further into the future, the operator may be able to control multiple unmanned systems across various domain simultaneously.[xxii],[xxiii] The ability to create heterogeneous “swarms” of unmanned systems with varying sensor suites in different physical operating environments will give the commander the flexibility to quickly configure and re-configure the unmanned system support throughout the duration of the operation.

 

New Technologies Create New Vulnerabilities

 

As these technologies are implemented, it is important to keep in mind their unique limitations and vulnerabilities. The stringent qualification process for military components, especially those with the potential to harm someone, is often described a key limitation to the implementation of modular components.[xxiv] However, without people on board, unmanned systems have lower safety standards making it easier to implement modular components in final designs. Compared to traditional methods, additive manufacturing is slow and produces parts limited in size. The materials have limited strength and can be 50 to 100 times more expensive than materials used in traditional methods.[xxv] While future development will decrease prices and increase material strength, traditional manufacturing techniques will remain more cost effective means of producing high volume items into the near future. Additionally, open designs and digital storage can create vulnerabilities that may be exploited if not properly secured. Militants in Iraq purportedly viewed live video feeds from UASs using cheap commercial software while Chinese cyberspies allegedly gained access to many of the US’s advanced weapons systems designs.[xxvi],[xxvii] Further, digital blueprints of parts have the potential to be modified by nefarious actors to create counterfeit or falsified parts.[xxviii] As the price of manufacturing equipment quickly drops, anyone can create the products when given access to the digital copies.[xxix]

 

Future technological innovations have the ability to modify traditional supply methodologies allowing the end user to manufacture parts on demand for use in a variety of unmanned systems. Proprietary hardware and software can be minimized, resulting in unmanned systems with smaller logistical footprints condensing vulnerable supply chains while reducing overall system cost. These benefits are tempered by the unique vulnerabilities that arise when standardizing and digitizing unmanned system designs. Despite these potential vulnerabilities, the ability to equip a force with increased capability while reducing costs and logistical requirements is indispensable. While the locations of the next conflicts will remain hard to predict, unmanned systems able to complete a variety of missions in remote areas with limited logistical support will become an operational necessity.

 

[i] Lloyd, Robin, Metric mishap caused loss of NASA orbiter, accessed athttp://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/index.html?_s=PM:TECH, 30 September 1999.

[ii] U.S. Department of Defense, DOD Directive 5000.1 – The Defense Acquisition System, Washington D.C., 12 May 2003.

[iii] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2013-2038, Washington D.C., 2013.

[iv] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2013-2038, Washington D.C., 2013.

[v] Llenza, Michael, “Print when ready, Gridley,” Armed Forces Journal, May 2013.

[vi] Beckhusen, Robert, Need Ships? Try a 3-D Printed Navy, accessed at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/04/3d-printed-navy/, 04 May 2013.

[vii] Cheney-Peters, Scott and Matthew Hipple, “Print Me a Cruiser!” USNI Proceedings, vol. 139, April 2013.

[viii] Beckhusen, Robert, In Tomorrow’s Wars, Battles Will Be Fought With a 3-D Printer, accessed at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/military-3d-printers/, 17 May 2013.

[ix] Leung, Isaac, All abuzz over small pop-up machines with Printed Circuit MEMS, accessed at http://www.electronicsnews.com.au/news/all-abuzz-over-small-pop-up-machines-with-printed-, 22 February 2012.

[x] Wood, R.J., “The First Takeoff of a Biologically Inspired At-Scale Robotic Insect,” Robotics, IEEE Transactions on , vol.24, no.2, pp.341,347, April 2008.

[xi] Soltero, D.E.; Julian, B.J.; Onal, C.D.; Rus, D., “A lightweight modular 12-DOF print-and-fold hexapod,” Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on , vol., no., pp.1465,1471, 3-7 Nov. 2013.

[xii] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2011-2036, Washington D.C., 18 September 2012.

[xiii] Real-Time Innovations, Interoperable Open Architecture, accessed at

http://www.rti.com/industries/open-architecture.html, 2012.

[xiv] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2013-2038, Washington D.C., 2013.

[xv] U.S. Department of Defense, Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY2013-2038, Washington D.C., 2013.

[xvi] Real-Time Innovations, Interoperable Open Architecture, accessed at

http://www.rti.com/industries/open-architecture.html, 2012.

[xvii] Crawford, Katherine, ONR Provides Blueprint for Controlling All Military Unmanned Systems, accessed at http://www.onr.navy.mil/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2013/ONR-Provides-Blueprint-for-Controlling-UAVs.aspx, 01 May 2013.

[xviii] Shelton, Marty, Manned Unmanned Systems Integration: Mission accomplished, accessed at http://www.army.mil/article/67838, 24 October 2011.

[xix] AAI Corporation, One System Remote Video Terminal, accessed at https://www.aaicorp.com/sites/default/files/datasheets/OSRVT_07-14-11u.pdf, 14 July 2011.

[xx] Lundquist, Edward, DoD’s Systems Control Services (UAS) developing standards, common control systems for UAVs, accessed at GSNMagazine.com, 06 January 2014.

[xxi] Crawford, Katherine, ONR Provides Blueprint for Controlling All Military Unmanned Systems, accessed at http://www.onr.navy.mil/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2013/ONR-Provides-Blueprint-for-Controlling-UAVs.aspx, 01 May 2013.

[xxii] DreamHammer goes Ballista for multi-vehicle control software, Unmanned Daily News, 15 August 2013.

[xxiii] SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego, Multi-robot Operator Control Unit (MOCU), accessed at http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/Pacific/Robotics/Pages/MOCU.aspx.

[xxiv] Freedberg, Sydney J., Navy Warship Is Taking 3D Printer To Sea; Don’t Expect A Revolution, accessed at http://breakingdefense.com, April 2014.

[xxv] McKinsey Global Institute, Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy, accessed at http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/disruptive_technologies, May 2013.

[xxvi] Gorman, Siobhan, Yochi Dreazen, and August Cole, Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones, The Wall Street Journal, 17 December 2009.

[xxvii] Nakashima, Ellen, Confidential report lists U.S. weapons system designs compromised by Chinese cyberspies, The Washington Post, 27 May 2013.

[xxviii] NexTech, Project Summary, NOETICGROUP.COM, April 2012.

[xxix] Llenza, Michael, “Print when ready, Grindley”, Armed Forces Journal, May 2013.

 

 

Project Tango and Communicating the Problem

Commercial 3D Imaging in Naval Maintenance and Repair

As with most things in life, a frequent hindrance to quickly fixing degraded systems aboard naval vessels is the inability to effectively communicate – in this case describing the problem to support facilities, sometimes thousands of miles away. Compounding the frustration is how long it can take to ship a solution part (perhaps soon alleviated by local additive manufacturing hubs) or send a team to perform the repair work, before realizing the disconnect between what the problem is and what the support facility thinks it is. Fortunately, the advent of cheap digital cameras, now nearly ubiquitous in cell phones, has eased the effort as photos now accompany many of the requests.

Tango and Cache: 3D rendering of a room captured by Google's Project Tango
Tango and Cache: 3D rendering of a room captured by Google’s Project Tango

A further aid may well soon be at hand. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google plans in June to begin production of a tablet with “two back cameras, infrared depth sensors and advanced software that can capture precise three-dimensional images of objects,” or “to create a kind of three-dimensional map of its user’s surroundings.”

Mobile 3D imaging technology is not new. We here at CIMSEC have previously discussed it in the context of potential tactical naval applications, such as for use by VBSS boarding teams either in a “recon” mode to gain a better picture of their tactical environment, or a “record” mode for later examination, intel exploitation, and lessons learned. Additionally, scientists have earlier noted that sound waves can be used to recreate a 3D representation of a cell phone user’s environment, with intriguing implications for security and spyware. Laser scanners – the peripheral of choice for generating 3D-rendered computer images for 3D printer files – may offer a similar and higher-fidelity solution, at least for the time being.

The advantage with Google’s Project Tango, as the initiative is known, is that a commercial behemoth integrating the technology into a widely used and compact mobile platform makes it much more likely to be available cheaply, and for developers to speed up the cycle of refining applications. Further, the ability to portray a degraded component in situ or the environment in question rather than as a standalone piece is an advantage over most of today’s laser scanners (although some companies have in fact marketed laser scanners as environment mappers).

The normal caveats about this being an immature technology that has yet to prove itself in the real world apply. But, if a picture of a problem is worth a thousand words, a 3D image may soon be worth at least much to the Navy’s repair reach-back commands.

LT Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founder and vice president of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.