Name: Drone technology in the spotlight | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-22T16:31:12.000Z
Duration: 4 min 54 s
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On today's battlefields, tanks and fighter jets are no longer dominating.

These images released by Ukrainian state television show unmanned aircraft striking an airfield of empty planes linked to Russian forces.

The strikes are precise without putting a single pilot or soldier in harm's way.

At the recent Singapore Air Show, Asia's most influential aerospace and defense exhibition, these unmanned vehicles were front and center.

AI is fully controlling the latest drones.

Instead of a remote human operator, the technology is embedded inside machines like Shield AI's vbat, which is used for surveillance in places like Ukraine.

That means they can even operate when GPS and communications are disrupted or jammed.

So our products include software and hardware.

Our hardware products are unmanned aircraft.

The software again, it enables you to build an AI pilot.

An AI pilot is essentially self driving technology for unmanned systems.

That means even traditional fighter jets can be flown without a human pilot.

In 2023, we did the first ever pilot F16 versus human pilot F16 flights that over the next five years you will see near every serious military in the world make a statement that they are building towards a million drone army, a 5 million drone army, a 10 million drone army.

You need AI pilots that enable a single person to command thousands, hundreds of thousands of drones.

So drones are getting smarter and more capable.

But this also means that governments will have to protect their countries against hostile forces using the same technology.

In this day and age, it's as important to defend against drones as it is to use them.

Australia's US is one of the few private companies in the world developing high power laser weapons, specifically to counter drones.

Two key aspects are the power of your laser and the ability to track the target at 3,000 meters.

We can have the laser on the drone for 1.5 seconds and it will destroy it out of the sky.

And that is based on killing 40 drones in one minute.

I guess the key for the technology is its low cost per kill.

What it also does is it can provide you with a capability that can continue to fire.

Doesn't rely on the supply of ammunition, you just need the supply of power.

But how far can drone and AI technology go?

Caught in the crossfire Shield AI is now developing a fully autonomous fighter jet.

This brings unmanned systems closer than ever to matching the firepower of traditional combat aircraft.

And with all that destructive potential, who takes responsibility if AI makes the wrong decision?

At the end of the day, there's human operators that are monitoring these systems.

If I called in a missile to hit a target, I own that missile.

Whether, you know, after it's been launched doesn't matter.

That's where accountability, accountability lies with these types of systems, it lies with the human operators.

While drones are transforming warfare, the same technology is being adapted for life saving missions.

One prominent player is Shenzhen based United Aircraft Group.

The company designs vehicles that range from small drones to heavy lift aircraft capable of carrying over a ton of cargo.

Their systems are already being used to survey disaster zones, reach places too dangerous for humans and even for food deliveries.

Chinese company can actually have a very mature product very quickly.

In China because of market size, people are developing things very fast.

Some of these kind of application is already happening.

They have this advantage of testing and even make a closed loop validation in China first.

With robotics and AI advancing at breakneck speed, we're likely to see these machines showing up more and more both on the battlefield and beyond.