This week’s research blog assignment
was to develop a basic strategy to ensure the successful implementation of any
unmanned system within known boundaries. But the blog had to address issues regarding
privacy, ethics, safety and lost/link loss of system control.
In order to develop a strategy to
address these issues, as they might apply to any given unmanned system, those
issues must first be defined. The
Microsoft Word based Encarta dictionary defines privacy, ethics, and safety in different
context, but only those significant to this discussion are provided in the following
manner:
Privacy-
(noun):
·
seclusion-the state of being apart from other
people and not seen, heard, or disturbed by them
·
freedom from
attention of others- freedom from the observation, intrusion, or attention
of others
·
hidden condition-
the state of being kept secret
Ethics
(noun):
·
study of
morality’s effect on conduct- the
study of moral standards and how they affect conduct (takes a singular verb)
·
code of
morality- a system of moral principles governing the appropriate conduct
for a person or group (takes a plural
verb)
Safety
(noun):
·
freedom
from danger- protection from, or not being exposed to, the risk of harm or
injury
·
lack of
danger- inability to cause or result in harm, injury, or damage
Lost/link is a
generally accepted term associated with radio frequency (RF) based communication
between a remote control station and an unmanned system (US) that has been
inhibited to such a degree that operational control or situational awareness of
the US is lost.
A post in Non-Military
& Commercial UAS, Regulatory Matters (2016) defined lost/link in the
following way:
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are
unique as they are operated through commands sent via line of sight, relayed by
satellite relay, or by responding to pre-set programming in the on-board
computer. (UAS, para. 2).
There are two components to lost
link: one is the up-link that transmits command and control (C2) instructions to
the aircraft; the second is the down-link which relays the operation/status of
onboard systems within the aircraft to the ground control station. If either
link is disabled or malfunctions, the result is defined as “lost link (UAS,
para. 3).
This definition can be aptly applied to any unmanned system
type whether it is ground, marine or aircraft.
Regardless of how these issues are defined, some distinctions must be
made in order to gain an understanding of how to develop a strategy to insure
these issues are addressed for the successful implementation of any given
unmanned system.
Privacy,
ethics and safety are terms that can be best described as state of mind. They are
not based on a given failure but on how an individual applies the term to their
own state of well-being, moral compass or security.
On the other hand, Lost/link is quantifiable, where the end
result is loss of human in/on-the-loop control and situational awareness of the
unmanned system. Lost/link cannot be
defined in different terms, on a case-by case basis, or differently from one
person to the next, it is what it is.
So, given any further analysis of
these issues, how does one develop a basic strategy to ensure the successful
implementation of any unmanned system within known boundaries? Those issues that are a state of mind can be resolved
thru continued education and regulation over a period of time, probably best
described as assimilation and adaption or as the Federal Aviation Administration
has aptly titled their basic strategy for implementation of UAS: Integration.
For issues that are quantifiable and result in unacceptable
outcomes, mitigation's must be established and tested to ensure the resulting
failure has been remedied to an acceptable level of risk, a risk that presents
itself as another state of mind and ultimately found acceptable to a given
society thru conditioned or integrated norms.
References
