38 2 CHAPTER 2 energy to keep people at a certain distance from an object or troops, and (2) Military Robots which they define ‘…as reusable unmanned systems for military purposes with any level of autonomy.’ (Royakkers & Orbons, 2015, p. 625). Military robots are subdivided in three categories; vehicles that are ground based, for example for unmanned reconnaissance and clearing road bombs, vehicles that can navigate unmanned on or below the water surface, such as a gun-station on a ship or an autonomous submarine, and vehicles that are unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV’s). These UCAV’s are classified by Royakkers and Orbons (2015) as tele-operated, of which ‘drones’ are the most well-known example, and autonomous UCAV’s, which are gradually developed by the US Department of Defense (Rosenberg & Markoff, 2016). Autonomous Weapons Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) Military Robots Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) Tele operated UCAV Autonomous UCAV Ground vehicles Water surface and underwater vehicles Figure 2: Classification of Autonomous Weapon Systems based on Royakkers and Orbons (2015) Galliott (2015) provides another type of classification of Autonomous Weapon Systems based on four levels of autonomy for unmanned systems: 1. Autonomy level 1 – Non-autonomous/ teleoperated: ‘A human operator controls each and every powered movement of the unmanned platform. Without the operator, teleoperated systems are incapable of effective operation.’ 2. Autonomy level 2 – Supervisory Autonomy: ‘A human operator specifies movements, positions or basic actions and the system then goes about performing these. The operator must provide the system with frequent input and diligent supervision in order to ensure correct operation.’
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