France Is Building AI-Powered Robotic Combat Units | Tech It Out | WION

[00:00:00]Here we go again. Now the French Army is developing a new generation of AI-powered robotic combat units designed to operate together, share information, and support human soldiers on the front line. So you have drones communicating [music] with robotic armed vehicles and independently coordinating strikes and campaigns. Now as long as they're not killing human beings and just killing other robots, that's fine. [music] But we all know that's not going to be the case.

[00:00:24]Have a look.

[00:00:30]>> The war in Ukraine has changed the way modern armies think about robots.

[00:00:35]On today's battlefields, ground robots are already delivering supplies, evacuating [music] wounded soldiers, and in some cases even capturing enemy positions.

[00:00:47]Now France is preparing for the next stage. Not just remote-controlled machines, but robotic combat units capable of working together using artificial intelligence. The project is called Pendragon. [music] And its aim is to build one of the first AI-enabled robotic [music] combat units in Europe.

[00:01:07]At the French Army's training ground in Brittany, engineers, soldiers, and AI researchers are teaching robots how to navigate the battlefield on their own.

[00:01:16]The goal is not simply to build smarter robots, but to create what the army calls a collective AI. In Ukraine, most ground robots and drones are still operated individually by human pilots.

[00:01:27][music] Pendragon takes a different approach.

[00:01:32]>> In Ukraine, the missions carried out by robots and drones are mainly missions with remotely operated devices that do not necessarily have fully autonomous artificial intelligence. With Pendragon, there is artificial intelligence on the robots.

[00:01:48]>> [music] >> Each robot uses its own AI to understand its surroundings, >> [music] >> while also sharing information with other robots in the unit. The idea is for multiple machines to coordinate their movements, complete missions, and support one another with minimal human input. The French Army hopes to have its first operational robotic combat unit ready by 2027, [music] combining around 15 ground robots with 60 autonomous drones.

[00:02:19]>> The drone set off with an image and a heading and navigated completely autonomously until it reached a perimeter that was meaningful for it being able, thanks to AI models, to understand its situation, its surroundings, re-detect the target, and then, as you saw, move in until it was just a few meters above the lorry.

[00:02:44]>> The vision goes far beyond a single machine. The French Army imagines robotic units made up of different specialists.

[00:02:52]Some vehicles could carry supplies.

[00:02:54]Others could deploy drone swarms. Some may provide reconnaissance, while others could be equipped with weapons or precision munitions.

[00:03:03]The program is also changing how the military develops new technology.

[00:03:07]Instead [music] of spending years writing requirements before testing equipment, soldiers, AI engineers, and robotics companies are developing the system together, defining the software through continuous field trials. [music] >> The mindset behind Pendragon is that there really is a trio. The engineers from AMIA the industries capable of providing technical building blocks, and then the operational personnel.

[00:03:36]We work hand in hand to gradually develop this project.

[00:03:43]>> As autonomous systems become more capable, they're also raising difficult questions about the future of warfare.

[00:03:49]The French Army says these are not killer robots. Officers insist that human commanders will remain responsible for every mission, assigning objectives and retaining control over the use of force.

[00:04:02]>> The real change will actually be this collective intelligence we're developing through Pendragon, where a single soldier will be able to control several drones or several robots. And that will make it possible to generate momentum and achieve tactical effects on the ground on a completely different scale.

[00:04:23]>> But the direction of travel is clear.

[00:04:25]Artificial intelligence is moving from the command center onto the battlefield [music] itself. And in the next generation of military operations, soldiers may no longer be fighting alone. They could be fighting alongside teams of intelligent machines.