DRASTIC Issue 1 2019 - Drones & Robotics

DRONES, ROBOTICS, AUTOMATION, SPACE, TECHNOLOGY, INTELLIGENCE, COMMUNICATIONS | www.drasticnews.com

ISSUE #1 2019

A New Race: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Human Convergence

The RoboCop Continuum

The rise of autonomous vehicles

Cyber data protection in Formula 1

The Security implications of driverless vehicles

Plus Techtime!

DroneZone D O W N U&N Unmanned D E R A N D D RSystems ASTICNEWS . COM

DRONE ZON E

CONFERENCE & SEMINAR PROGRAM FRIDAY 1 – SUNDAY 3 MARCH Friday 1 March

DroneZone RPAS Conference

0900 - 1100 1100 - 1400 1430 - 1630

Drones for Industry (Mining, Resources & Construction) Drones in Agriculture (Heavy Lift Drones & Precision Farming) Drones for Local Government (Parks, Property & Maintenance Inspection)

0930 - 1130

Drones in Search & Rescue (Oceans, Mountains & Beaches)

Room 4

Friday 1 March

Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference

Room 6

0930 - 1130 1200 - 1300 1330 - 1500

Robotics 2025 and Beyond (What’s the future) Responsive Drones (For a secure workplace & society) Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Human Convergence (+ VR- AR)

Saturday 2 March DroneZone RPAS Conference

Room 5

Room 5

0900 - 1100 1100 - 1400 1430 - 1630

Drones for Film & Photography (Flying the Lens - Masterclass) Drones in Agriculture (Field Mapping & Harvest yield) Drone Pilot Training (CASA Licensing & Registration)

0930 - 1130

MRO for Drones (Safety & Repairs)

Room 4

1200 - 1300

Starting your Drone Business (Tips for entering the industry)

Room 4

The Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference is a joint initiative of Room 6 DRASTICnews.com and the DroneZone DownUnder Showcase.

Saturday 2 March Robotics & Robots at Home & School 1000 - 1100 1130 - 1230 This is 1300 - 1400

Buying a Robot (What and where to buy) Study Robotics (TAFE & Universities) opportunity to be part of a special exhibition Play with Robots (Science & Games clubs)

an and distribution of a cobranded print and digital edition for primary online websites and media centres RPAS Conference Room 5 Sunday 3 March DroneZone across the Avalon International Airshow 2019 0930 - 1130 1200 - 1400 1430 - 1630

Drones for Film & Photography (Flying the Lens - Masterclass) Drone Pilot Training (CASA Licensing & Registration) The Responsive & Robotics Conference DRASTICnews.

Drones for Sport Drones & Recreation (Drone Racing &and Sports Entertainment) com will receive additional promotional and marketing exposure via

Sunday 3 March Robotics & Robots at Home & School Seminars 1000 - 1100 1130 - 1230 1300 - 1400

Room 6

www.airshow.com.au Buying a Robot (What and where to buy) Study Robotics (Secondary, TAFE & Universities) www.dronezonedownunder.com.au Play with Robots (Science & Game clubs)

& channels of www.mysecuritymedia.com

For more information visit our website: www.dronezonedownunder.com.au or contact Rodd Craig - M: 0457 848 104 E: rcraig@amda.com.au

www.airshow.com.au

019 is organised by Aerospace Australia Limited (ABN 63 091 147 787). A not-for-profit corporation limited by guarantee and registered as a charity, its mission is to aviation and the development of Australia's industrial, manufacturing and information/communications technology resources in aviation, aerospace and defence.

D R ON E ZON E

DOW N UND ER

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Trade promotions, started with Farnborough UK Airshow followed by: Aviation AIA Conference, 30 -31 July D & I Conference & Dinner, 1 -3 August Land Forces Expo & Conference, 4- 6 September IAC, 1- 5 October AUSA, 8- 10 October Euronaval, 22-26 October UK Security Expo, 28-29 November

Nelson New Zealand Canberra Adelaide Bremen, Germany Washington USA Paris London

Exposure across 160,000+ visitors to the show and the 10,000+ visitors through the DroneZone including industry, federal and state governments and international buyers.

DroneZone DownUnder

RESPONSIVE

DRONES & ROBOTICS CONFERENCE The revolution in Unmanned Vehicles, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence will change the way we work and live, create new ways of doing business and inspire entirely new industries.

Unmanned vehicles have progressed from user-directed tools to autonomous systems and responsive drones that react independently and automatically.

To present the state of the art in these new technologies, Aerospace Australia Limited, organiser of the AVALON 2019 Australian International Airshow and Aerospace Defence Expo, is collaborating with Drones & Robotics DRASTICnews.com to illustrate the challenges and opportunities, through the Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference as part of the Drone Showcase at AVALON 2019.

The Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference will feature highly topical sessions with experts from University research groups, Security industry consultants and Responsive Drone manufacturers, including: The opportunities of new technology must be equaled with security controls to avoid new harm and hazards. This technology focused conference examines how security technology and robotics applies in the ASEAN region, to cities and buildings and how fast emerging technology is impacting ACROSS the security domain.

Keynote address: “A New Race: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and Human Convergence” The advent of robotics in human form, able to be produced, on mass, being conveniently and promptly 3D printed, is already a reality. Humans and robots, even as life and social partners, is also, already a reality. The next phase, will be humanoid robots operating emotionally, with an AI avatar. Each machine, be it a drone or robot creates, and brings, unique strategic, tactical and operational capabilities. Across all market verticals, the rise of the robot will be a new challenge with the obvious ‘pros and cons’ for consumers, corporates, governments and security providers seeking greater detection, monitoring, awareness and analytical tools to assist security intelligence and law enforcement. l

Morning Session: Responsive Drones for a more Secure Workforce and Society l The capacity for remotely or autonomously piloted aircraft systems to support domestic law enforcement and security applications is widely recognised and increasingly viable. An important emerging focal point has been on system integration and 3D printing applications. Response orientated systems continue to show they can overcome technical challenges and provide a rapid first response and live reporting capability.

Afternoon Session: Robotics: AI, VR, AR, and the Rise of Autonomous Vehicles Alongside increasing Security Robot and drone deployments there will be innovation needed in new training and simulation methods, including Virtual Reality training, use of gaming controls for tactical robotic operations for civil security. VR and AR is anticipated to drive new digital transformation and provides a substantial user experience if correctly supported by new hardware and software. There remains a lot of challenges with the mix needing to combine the right form of hardware, new software platforms and most importantly, new content. Getting this mix right has the potential to fundamentally change how users operate online, engage socially and behave commercially. There will be a range of security implications and applications worth examining.

The conference program is supported by a custom showcase display, dedicated to responsive drones and robotics within the DroneZone at AVALON 2019.

The Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference will attract delegates involved in telecommunications, security, autonomous systems, robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual and augmented reality, plus autonomous vehicles.

The Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference is supported and promoted across the www.mysecuritymedia.com stable of publications and the dedicated www.airshow.com.au and www.dronezonedownunder.com.au websites.

The 2019 Drone Showcase follows the highly successful launch event at the 2017 airshow, which attracted more than 8,000 people, and featured industry experts detailing the rise of drones and remote piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) in fields such as business and industry, agriculture, search and rescue, security and entertainment.

Both organisations look forward to making the 2019 conference and showcase pavilion a must attend event to hear and explore all that’s new and exciting in the drones and robotics workplace.

For more information visit our website: www.dronezonedownunder.com.au or contact Rodd Craig - M: 0457 848 104 E: rcraig@amda.com.au

Be in the Australian International Airshow 2019

Supported by

Don’t miss the opportunity to display, explain and demonstrate your products and services ....

RPAS – drones to most people – are one of the fastest growing sectors in the modern aerospace industry.

They are transforming the agriculture, film making photography, real estate, mining and resource sectors, construction and maintenance industries as well as enthralling hobbyists.

UAV’s for Business & Industry l Responsive Drones & Robotics l Drone Pilot Training l Drones for Search & Rescue l Drones for Film - Photography l Drones for Agriculture l Drones for Racing & Sport l Robotics & Unmanned Systems l CASA Safety Information l

The AIRSHOW 2019 ‘Drone & Unmanned Systems Showcase’ will operate from 9am-6pm Friday 1 to Sunday 3 March and is a showcase for Drones, UAVS, RPAS, Cameras and Responsive Drones & Robotics.

The exhibition and display areas will host live demonstrations with supporting conferences and seminar sessions by industry experts and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

For more information visit our website: www.dronzonedownunder.com.au or contact Rodd Craig - M: 0457 848 104 E: rcraig@amda.com.au

www.airshow.com.au

AVALON 2019 is organised by Aerospace Australia Limited (ABN 63 091 147 787). A not-for-profit corporation limited by guarantee and registered as a charity, its mission is to promote aviation and the development of Australia's industrial, manufacturing and information/communications technology resources in aviation, aerospace and defence.

Supported by

DroneZone & Unmanned Systems

CONFERENCE & SEMINAR PROGRAM FRIDAY 1 – SUNDAY 3 MARCH Friday 1 March

DroneZone RPAS Conference

0900 - 1100 1100 - 1400 1430 - 1630

Drones for Industry (Mining, Resources & Construction) Drones in Agriculture (Heavy Lift Drones & Precision Farming) Drones for Local Government (Parks, Property & Maintenance Inspection)

0930 - 1130

Drones in Search & Rescue (Oceans, Mountains & Beaches)

Room 4

Friday 1 March

Responsive Drones & Robotics Conference

Room 6

0930 - 1130 1200 - 1300 1330 - 1500

Robotics 2025 and Beyond (What’s the future) Responsive Drones (For a secure workplace & society) Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Human Convergence (+ VR- AR)

Saturday 2 March DroneZone RPAS Conference

Room 5

Room 5

0900 - 1100 1100 - 1400 1430 - 1630

Drones for Film & Photography (Flying the Lens - Masterclass) Drones in Agriculture (Field Mapping & Harvest yield) Drone Pilot Training (CASA Licensing & Registration)

0930 - 1130

MRO for Drones (Safety & Repairs)

Room 4

1200 - 1300

Starting your Drone Business (Tips for entering the industry)

Room 4

Saturday 2 March Robotics & Robots at Home & School 1000 - 1100 1130 - 1230 1300 - 1400

Buying a Robot (What and where to buy) Study Robotics (TAFE & Universities) Play with Robots (Science & Games clubs)

Sunday 3 March DroneZone RPAS Conference 0930 - 1130 1200 - 1400 1430 - 1630

Room 5

Drones for Film & Photography (Flying the Lens - Masterclass) Drone Pilot Training (CASA Licensing & Registration) Drones for Sport & Recreation (Drone Racing & Sports Entertainment)

Sunday 3 March Robotics & Robots at Home & School Seminars 1000 - 1100 1130 - 1230 1300 - 1400

Room 6

Room 6

Buying a Robot (What and where to buy) Study Robotics (Secondary, TAFE & Universities) Play with Robots (Science & Game clubs) For more information visit our website: www.dronezonedownunder.com.au or contact Rodd Craig - M: 0457 848 104 E: rcraig@amda.com.au

www.airshow.com.au

AVALON 2019 is organised by Aerospace Australia Limited (ABN 63 091 147 787). A not-for-profit corporation limited by guarantee and registered as a charity, its mission is to promote aviation and the development of Australia's industrial, manufacturing and information/communications technology resources in aviation, aerospace and defence.

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A dedicated channel for Boards, C-Suite Executives and Cyber Risk Leaders to highlight cyber threats as a key business issue.

Event opportunities in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & Singapore providing attendees a special experience and additional takeaways, including podcast interviews and print media.

The Australian Cyber Security Magazine was launched in agreement with the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) to be focused on AISA’s 3,000 members, nationally and forms part of AISA’s national cyber security awareness and membership communication platform.

The Australian Security Magazine is the country’s leading government and corporate security magazine. It is published bi-monthly and is distributed to many of the biggest decision makers in the security industry. Provoking editorial and up-to-date news, trends and events for all security professionals.

MySecurity Media can facilitate specialist round-table luncheons or breakfast sessions for up to 20 invited guests for high level discussion on Security & Cybersecurity themes, guided by the Vendor’s Leaders and accompanied with published content.

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Dedicated channel for all things about Drones, Robotics, Autonomous systems, Technology, Information and Communications

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Vive HTC Pro review and developer thoughts

T By Bennett Ring Correspondent, MySecurity Media

12 | DrasticNews.com

he consumer VR revolution may have begun with more of a whimper than a bang, with both the Oculus Rift Consumer Version 1 (CV1) and HTC Vive experiencing much lower sales volumes than anticipated, but this hasn’t stopped the technology growing exponentially faster than anticipated. The biggest leap forward is the pixel density of the displays used within; initial projections by NVIDIA in 2016 were that it would take at least five years to hit 4K x 4K screens per eye, but we’ve already seen prototypes from Pimax with 8K screens just 12 months later.

The first commercial VR HMD to hit the market with an improved pixel density is HTC’s new Vive Pro, aimed at professional VR developers, and it has a price tag to match. At AU$1,199 for just the HMD, with no controllers or Lighthouse tracking stations included, it’s a vast price increase compared to the original HTC Vive kit, which currently retails for $879 and includes two motion controllers and twin Lighthouse tracking stations. We recently got eyeson with the Vive Pro, and were immediately impressed by the increased Pixels Per Inch, or PPI. This is thanks to an increase from the original Vive’s resolution of 1080 x 1200 per eye, at 448 PPI, to the Vive

Pro’s 1440 x 1600 per eye, or 615 PPI, a 37% increase.

This means the screen-door effect, or sub-pixel grid array visibility, has been vastly improved. In practice, this makes it much easier to resolve fine detail, be it crisper text or distant features, which is especially noticeable in vehicle simulations with complex cockpits, as well as photographbased scenes.

The screens are based on the same AMOLED panel technology of the original, running at 90Hz to deliver a motion-to-photon latency of approximately 7ms, though your mileage will vary depending on the GPU powering the HMD. Further investigation reveals the Vive Pro screens are the same as those used in Samsung’s Odyssey Mixed Reality HMD. As with all consumer HMDs, the Vive Pro uses a Fresnel lens design to increase the field of view of each screen, up to 110 degrees. Unfortunately these lenses have the side effect of ‘God-rays’, where bright parts of the scene cause a corona towards the edge of the screen, but we definitely noticed an improvement when compared to the original.

The other major change is a new mounting design, which is much simpler to fit to each user’s unique headshape. Not only is it easier to mount, it also results in a much

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tighter fit, which is very important given that the Fresnel lens design has a sweet-spot; outside of this and the image blurs, but the tighter mount of the Vive Pro makes this less of an issue.

The exterior of the Vive Pro HMD now also includes two cameras, though only one is currently active, but the plan is for the second to be used to recognise exterior objects.

It’s possible that this may do away entirely with the need for exterior controllers, as the stereo cameras should be able to recognise the user’s hands, using kinetic detection algorithms similar to those found in the Leap Motion product.

The final chassis design change is the inclusion of twin 2.5-inch stereo headphone speakers, whereas the original required the use of additional headphones Sound quality is excellent, with very little distortion even when the volume was set to 100%. However, the speaker arms are a little short, so those with larger heads may find that they have difficulty in covering their ears entirely.

Due to the increased resolution of the displays, HDMI is no longer supported as a video source, instead using DisplayPort 1.2, along with a USB 3.0 Type C and USB 3.1 Type A plug, all of which connect to the exterior video link box. There’s still a 15-meter tether cable between the HMD

and the link box, but HTC has demonstrated a wireless kit which isn’t on sale yet. While this does remove the issue of tripping over cables when in room-tracking mode, it does increase latency by an as-yet undisclosed amount.

While we were thoroughly impressed by the increase in image quality and improved mounting design, this device is aimed at professional VR developers, so we spoke to Mitchell Manganaro, Studio Manager at Melbourne-based VR developer Opaque media, to see how the improvements have impacted the company’s VR project design. According to Mr Manganaro, the biggest enhancement from his perspective is both the improved resolution, as well as even better room-tracking. “With the Vive Pro the user gets a higher resolution screen, which is great for showing off even better-looking content. There is an even better advantage though, and it’s the second-generation tracking solution.

Out of the box you get up to 10m x 10m of tracking space, and it will be scalable to 20m x 20m soon.” Unfortunately our test-space was limited to just 3m x 3m, so we were unable to test this increase.

User comfort is also a major upgrade from the original, with Mr Manganaro stating that, “The comfort of the device has been a point of praise around the studio.”. On the other DrasticNews.com | 13

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Mitchell Manganaro

hand, he also believes that the colour quality of the screens has been decreased, though the technical specifications don’t indicate a decreased colour quality.

While the Vive Pro makes it easier to resolve increased detail, developers are still targeting markets that are using lower resolution displays. As a result, content for these devices has to be built in mind for two different usage scenarios. “Creating content that will run on current hardware is key, as adoption rates for Vive Pro won’t be that high, (so we are) creating content for the Oculus Rift CV1 and HTC Vive 1.0, and then putting out content at higher resolution for Vive Pro.” There’s no denying that the improved resolution results in a vastly improved user experience, but there is 14 | DrasticNews.com

an accompanying leap in overall cost of ownership that we believe limits the Vive Pro to professional use only.

Compared to $879 for the complete HTC Vive 1.0 kit, versus $1,999 for the Vive Pro with twin controllers and Lighthouse base stations, the increase in price is hard to justify for consumer-focused users. Thankfully we should see the Vive Pro become part of the base Vive kit in the near future.

We’ll be going hands-on with a variety of Windows Mixed Reality HMDs in the near future to see how they compare, which have an identical resolution as the Vive Pro. In the meantime, if you’re already an owner of the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift CV1.0, unless you’re a professional developer creating content for higher-resolution displays due in the near future, there’s no need to upgrade.

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PODCAST HIGHLIGHT EPISODES

Episode 73 – Tech convergence - Drones, 3D printing & payloads – Nigel Brown, Autonomous Technology Nigel Brown, Director of Autonomous Technology provides insights into running a certified drone operation, with a particular focus on the mining and resources sector in Western Australia. As a recent client of Konica Minolta’s 3D printing technology, Nigel Brown provides discussion on the application of 3D printed parts and payloads and how the application of fast-developing 3D printer systems provides new business opportunities with developing smaller and lighter payloads.

Episode 71 – Tech-crime & international policing 2.0 Europol's former executive director Rob Wainwright Technology has transformed a whole range of different crimes and new avenues for terrorists to explore, including exploitation of social media platforms, as seen by the Islamic State. We are always racing against criminals to a certain extent but have great potential on the policing side.

Rob Wainwright, former Executive Director at Europol, gave an earlier presentation at Cebit Australia. His presentation, ‘Data – the new oil in the network economy fighting crime and terrorism’, highlighted a different age to come.

Rob termed this ‘International Policing 2.0’, along with the AI race with crime, security by design and privacy by design.

Episode 69 – Moving the dial: Measuring the relationship between the user and their activity on a machine: Interview with Jeff Paine, CEO & Founder, ResponSight Jeff Paine, CEO and Founder of ResponSight, a three year old Australian startup that elevates enterprises away from focusing on technology alone, discusses the link between the technology and user. Statistical and telemetry based, ResonSight has a lightweight footprint in its risk analytics and risk profiling outcomes that help enterprises make decisions.

Chris and Jeff talk about the three key components, the ResponSight Collector, ResponSight Aggregator and ResponSight Cloud Service, each working in conjunction. By combining large volumes of raw numerical telemetry and selected metrics, it’s possible to build activity and behaviour profiles about users and their devices, without ever knowing who that user is or what that device is. This also provides the ability to profile the organisation's risk at a point in time, and over time. The design philosophy is to not collect private or sensitive data. There isn’t a need for rich and potentially sensitive data for security.

Episode 67 – Tech & terrorists, drones & devices – insights from australia’s leading terrorism researcher – Professor Clive Williams, ANU Professor Clive Williams, Centre for Security and Military Law at the Australian National University has been a staple provider of research into national security and counter terrorism for many years. Professor Williams provides current insight into terrorism activity in the Asia Pacific, including the Marawi seige in 2017 where 1,000 insurgents were killed, and provides a chilling warning which rang true about Islamic State fighters returning to their homeland and posing a threat. Bombings in Surabaya, Indonesia two weeks (13 May) after this warning proved him correct.

Episode 62 – Austcyber's knowledge priorities - interview with Mike Bareja, Program Manager National Network In this interview, Morry Morgan speaks with Mike Bareja, Program Manager National Network at AustCyber - The Australian Cyber Security Growth Network Ltd following his presentation at CIVSEC 2018 in Melbourne.

Mike outlines AustCyber’s Cyber Security Sector Competitiveness Plan and the 5 DARPA Grand Challenges or Knowledge Priorities, where resources and attention are focused on: · Emerging prevention, detection and response technologies; · dentity, authentication and authorisation in the cyber domain; · Ensuring security, privacy, trust and ethical use of emerging technologies and services; and of cyber security.

Funding of $15M over 4 years is available for industry-led, collaborative projects that address the key issues from the Industry Knowledge Priorities.

Media independently of the Risk Management Institute’s National Conference.

Recorded November 16, 2017, Canberra.

Episode 60 – The fundamentals of operating a secure cloud, Rupert Taylor-Price, CEO of Vault Systems In this interview, Chris Cubbage talks to Rupert Taylor-Price, Founder and CEO of Vault Systems, an Australian-owned, sovereign cloud provider, for highly protected data, purpose built for the Australian government.

Created to enable multiple departments share cyber security infrastructure, Vault Systems have moved into a mainstream government cloud platform, in part by the 2014 cloud-first initiative. Since then, Vault, which was founded by Rupert, has smashed expectations, and recently secured the biggest cloud deal in the history of the Australian government.

www.australiancybersecuritymagazine.com.au

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The

Robocop Continuum Confronting automated and robotic policing

I By Dr Monique Mann

n July 2016, Dallas police deployed and detonated a remote controlled robot laden with explosives, resulting in the death of a sniper. This event drew widespread attention to robotics in policing, as this was the first time a robot had been used to kill outside the battlefield.

However the use of robots to slay suspects, as in the Dallas case, represents but one extreme example of robotics in policing. There is a more nuanced continuum of police technologies being widely implemented in Australia, and around the world. Two opposing axes of hardwaresoftware and autonomy-dependence define the continuum of police robots. This produces a typology of automated and robotic police technologies, including dependent (or human operated) robotic hardware, autonomous robotic hardware, dependent software and autonomous software.

From dependent hardware police robots through to autonomous softbots, the social, legal and ethical issues become increasingly more complex and appreciation of this continuum of technologies precipitates important considerations concerning human rights, due process protections and regulatory approaches.

Human Operated Police Robots Robots are increasingly part of law enforcement operations, and most robotic devices currently in use are human-

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operated. That is, the robot or machine complete tasks under human control and supervision. This may include functions ranging from bomb defusal to crowd dispersal (via the use of Long Range Acoustic Devices, LRADs). The actions of these robots can be attributed to human decisionmaking, however this is not to say these technologies are unproblematic or do not raise important ethical, social and legal concerns. One major unresolved issue concerns the use of both lethal and non-lethal force by human operated robots, as was the case in the Dallas incident. Yet when decision-making becomes increasingly abstracted from human actors, further issues emerge.

Autonomous Deception Detection and Robot Enhanced Interrogation Police have historically used the polygraph for lie detection; however, a modern alternative is evolving in the form of the Automated Virtual Agent for Truth Assessments in Real-Time (AVATAR), currently under development by the University of Arizona and United States (US) Customs and Border Protection. Further, the US Department of Homeland Security is working towards Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST) where a robotic interviewer asks questions while assessing biometric information such as facial expressions, voice intonation and inflection to

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detect deception. Combining this technology with predictive questioning and access to large and ever expanding police databases enables robot-enhanced interrogation. There are concerns about an individual’s right to silence and to not self-incriminate, as well as questions around the parameters of legitimate search. Here, ‘black-box’ decisionmaking creates the potential for limited transparency in how policing decisions are made by machines.

Automated and Area Wide Surveillance Automated systems of surveillance including Automated Facial Recognition Technology (AFRT) and Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) have the potential to completely remove humans from decision-making processes associated with surveillance and access control.

The integration of this technology with widely implemented existing surveillance systems such as CCTV has enabled automated detection and decision-making. For example, some businesses in the UK are using a system known as Facewatch that scans and cross-references faces with police databases to alert store owners when suspected shoplifters enter their store.

In addition to automated surveillance, there have been recent revelations about programs of area wide surveillance by drones and aircraft, such as by the Baltimore Police Department. Together, these programs have the potential to create a world of near ‘perfect’ surveillance with obvious implications for individual rights to privacy.

‘black-box’ decision-making creates the potential for limited transparency in how policing child sex predators. As these cases proceed to trial, it is unclear whether this use of technology will be considered entrapment.

Conclusion The regulatory tipping point for automated and robotic policing has past. Certainly police robots should be considered as not only the agents, but also the subjects of law. Priority areas requiring attention and new regulatory measures include legal frameworks surrounding robot use of force, processes to ensure the transparency of ‘black-box’ automated algorithmic enforcement decisionmaking, consideration of how criminal law is converted into algorithm and the admissibility of softbot procured evidence in criminal trials. These issues must be confronted in the futures of automated and robotic policing.

Autonomous Robot Patrol Autonomous patrol by robots is perhaps the clearest example of both automation and robotics technology in policing and uptake is readily expanding across the world.

The Knightscope K5 Robot is a popular choice in the US for patrolling shopping centres, car parks and schools. Robotic prison guards have been used to patrol prisons in South Korea, and the ‘Reborg-Q’ patrols public areas in Japan.

From May this year autonomous police robots will patrol in Dubai, where officials have set a target that a quarter of all police will be robotic by 2030. Questions remain about the capacity for human decision-makers to override autonomous agents when on patrol making independent policing decisions. Who is responsible for the actions of autonomous robots? How do we translate criminal law into algorithm? What parameters are set to operate? What is the impact of machine learning? And how do we factor in error?

Softbots, Information System Security and Cyber Policing Finally, ‘softbots’ (autonomous software) must be considered following last year’s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) grand cyber challenge with programmers competing to develop and deploy autonomous software that both defends and attacks information systems. There are numerous possible applications of autonomous softbots in cyber security and law enforcement contexts. One example is the ‘Sweetie’ softbot, a computer generated 10-year-old Filipino girl created specifically to lure online

The Knightscope K5 Robot DrasticNews.com | 19

Cyber Security DrasticNews.com

70 Australian-made DroneGun Tactical anti-drone devices sold to middle Eastern Country

A By Bennett Ring

20 | DrasticNews.com

ustralian company DroneShield has just announced one of the biggest anti-drone technology sales in Australia’s history, with the purchase of 70 DroneGun Tactical weapons to a middle-Eastern Country.

While the company isn’t able to divulge which country the sales have been made to, we had a chance to interview the company’s CEO and MD, Oleg Vornik, to discuss the deal.

The total value of the sales exceeds AU$3.2 million, making it the largest of its type in the Australian defence sector. DroneShield has been developing the DroneGun Tactical and its underlying technology for over five years, and 70 units of the DroneGun Tactical will be deployed soon to the unnamed country. This is the largest deal for the company to date, which is currently targeting approximately 50 countries for sales of its products.

QLD Police DG MKII - Comm Games - AAP ImageThe DroneGun Tactical uses a similar design to a standard rifle, using a default stock, handgrip and trigger configuration, making it simple to train soldiers familiar with traditional weapons. It would have been possible to use a simple box and button style design, but DroneShield decided to use a more traditional layout to simplify training. Included in the deal is on-the-ground training of the system by DroneShield staff. Weighing just 6.5kg including twin Lithium-Ion batteries and with a range of up to 1km, the DroneGun Tactical uses jamming technology to disable consumer-level

drones, known as a “soft-kill device”, unlike the destructive technologies used by other anti-drone technologies on the market. Destructive defence devices currently include lasers, ballistic weapons and shockwave-technology.

The DroneGun Tactical can jam devices across multiple RF band simultaneously, including 433MHz, 915MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz, and will immediately disable video feedback to the operator. It can also use optional GNSS disruption, blocking both GPS and GLONASS navigation systems. According to Mr Vornik, the jamming nature of the DroneGun gives it a distinct advantage over other technologies, as it means that each disabled drone can be retrieved and analysed. There’s also the risk of collateral damage when using destructive anti-drone technologies, especially if the drone is equipped with explosives. As a result, Mr Vornik believes these reasons proved to be a competitive advantage for DroneShield when compared to competing tenders for the deal.

The DroneGun Tactical is designed to target consumer drones, as these affordable devices are now being used in a variety of roles that require active-defence measures, not only by the military, but also by private corporations. The use of these drones is primarily in counter-surveillance, but Mr Vornik also delved into other nefarious measures where today’s drones can prove to be a threat. “A drone like a DJI Phantom can easily carry two 40mm grenades, each

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Weighing just 6.5kg including twin Lithium-Ion batteries and with a range of up to 1km, the DroneGun Tactical uses jamming technology to disable consumer-level drones, known as a “soft-kill device” weighing a quarter of a kilogram, which it can then deploy.

It’s not going to destroy a building, but it can kill several people and cause a distraction. They can also be used to carry toxins and dirty bombs, where you don’t necessarily need a large volume”. Commercial operators are also at risk, even if the drones aren’t modified at all. “At airports they can be sucked into aircraft engines, potentially blowing up the engine and bringing the aircraft down. They can also drop into the cooling stack of a power station, shutting down the station and leading to months of repairs.”

Recent uses of consumer drones in such attacks include the Israeli interception of an Iranian drone, reports of Yemen’s Houthi faction to attack a Saudi Aramco facility and a recent attempted attack on the Saudi Arabian Abha international airport.

DroneShield has focused on jamming technologies rather than taking control of the hostile drone device, as the huge range of encryption protocols and frequencies currently used by various consumer drones makes the latter a much harder task. While it is possible to develop anti-drone technology to do so, they’re very limited in their scope. This is because methods that take control of the drone can only handle particular models, but they require knowledge of the specific signature of each drone type.

This is easily combatted by rogue drone operators by altering the drone’s firmware or operating system.

This is not the first time the DroneGun technology

has been employed, with its recent use at both the Commonwealth Games and the ASEAN leader’s conference in Sydney. Before being employed at these events, the DroneShield technology underwent substantial evaluation by the Australian Military. Mr Vornik believes the most recent sale puts DroneShield at the “…forefront of the industry, and is likely to have a substantial positive effect on DroneShield’s corporate discussions with larger industry players”.

As well as offering the mobile DroneGun device, DroneShield also sells two installation based devices that are automated and designed to cover a much larger area.

The first is the DroneSentinel, which uses a modular, multisensor solution that can cover ranges of up to 5km. The second is DroneSentry, which adds anti-drone technology to knock out incoming threats and which can handle swarm attacks of multiple drone devices simultaneously.

Both systems use a combination of radar, radio frequency, acoustic and thermal detection to detect incoming unauthorised drones, which are then passed to the operator via an easy-to-use GUI-based system.

While deliveries of the DroneGun tactical are imminent, the sale is currently subject to approval by a U.S. regulator overseeing defence exports. However, DroneShield expects to receive this approval within the next two months using the established U.S. defence sale approval process.

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Water drone up for top Airshow innovation prize A waterproof drone that can land on sea has been nominated for a top innovation prize.

Black-KiteKnown as Black Kite, the drone designed by RMIT University engineers with Defence Science & Technology Group has been nominated for a National Defence Innovation Award at next week’s Avalon International Airshow.

RMIT University’s project lead, Dr Abdulghani Mohamed, said Black Kite represented a successful “world first” drone for maritime applications: it’s entirely water-proof and can land and take-off on water, even with some level of swell and in all-weather conditions.

“This system would enhance abilities toinvestigate or meet incoming vesselsor divers,” Mohamed said.

“Sending a drone to perform this task is quicker ad safer than sending people into potential danger also easier as it completes the mission with high levels of autonomy.”

The drone is on display during this week’s Airshow as a nominee for the $15,000 prize.

Black-Kite-testMohamed said Black Kite had also been designed to operate with high levels of autonomy in taking off, intercepting and tracking targets, returning to base and landing.

It has an operating range of up to 3km and can carry a 3kg payload, including a wide range of sensors and on-board speaker and mic system for two-way communication with vessels.

Black Kite co-creator,RMIT University’s

Dr Matthew Marino, said it was satisfying to develop a technology that had its beginnings as a student project, then developed through several prototype stages and testing using RMIT’s industrial wind tunnel facilities.

“It was fantastic to see the motivation and dedication of RMIT Engineering students who formed a strong team to help develop a very successful technology, tried and tested in a real environment,” Marino said.

“That kind of hands-on learning and skills will be highly valued in the growing drone sector.”

The drone has been presented before top US Navy officials and, after nearly 40 test missions and further development, is now fully ready for deployment.

Marino and Mohamed are senior researchers in RMIT’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research Team (RUASRT) – working on cutting edge drone technology and novel applications.

RMIT’s aerospace and defence research will be on show at the Australian International Airshow, 26 Feb-3 Mar 2019. Come and see our latest innovations and industry collaborations.

The new, ready to fly professional mini drone A surveillance, recognition, inspection and search drone DRONE VOLT is expanding its product offer with the introduction of AIRSHADOW, its new mini drone. Programmable for automatic missions, this compact and sturdy drone can fly with a low visual and noise signature at speeds up to 90 km/h both day and night.

The DRONE VOLT R&D teams have integrated the latest technologies in order to meet the numerous requirements for professional and industrial applications. The new DRONE VOLT CONTROL application enables 22 | DrasticNews.com

simple and rapid mission programming.

The AIRSHADOW is offered in two versions with a maximum range of 5 km. Real-time operator / machine data transmission is secured.

acquire high precision images and videos both day and night (for example, license plates or faces).

Sturdy

Secured data Data transmission is completely secured through the use of AES-256 encryption algorithm. discreet droneA discreet drone The AIRSHADOW has a low visual and noise signature.

With its camera and infrared detector, it can

The AIRSHADOW is able to fly in difficult weather conditions such as moderate rain and wind speeds up 40 km/hour.

The rigidity of its nylon chassis reinforced with carbon fibers makes AIRSHADOW more shock-resistant and gives its excellent robustness.

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Compact and ready to fly The AIRSHADOW is compact (31×33 cm and 15 cm tall) and easy to transport. No assembly is needed before use.

High performance Ultra-rapid, the AIRSHADOW can reach a flight speed of 90 km/h.

It can fly for 20 minutes with a large range of action and maximum video transmission range of 5 km.

Automatic missions The DRONE VOLT CONTROL application makes it possible to easily program different missions and monitor telemetric data on the control screen.

Two versions available: The AIRSHADOW platform offers two versions with either: A high performance camera weighing 180 g.

The double EO-IR (Electro-Optical-Infrared) stabilized camera offers professional exceptional image quality and sharpness both day and night. Its 20x digital zoom enables it to capture detailed images.

A combination of a 160×120 thermal camera and a 2 megapixel color camera. It is possible to switch from one camera to the other or to display the two in picture-in-picture mode.

Applications The AIRSHADOW is designed for use in applications such as surveillance, recognition, inspection, search and mapping in the security, safety, construction and energy areas.

“The AIRSHADOW represents true innovation, guaranteeing data confidentiality through its encryption system. Thanks to its new structure, it is extremely robust. Additionally, it has been designed to fly at high speeds in complete discretion. This new drone meets the market’s high expectations, particularly in the United States,” indicated Olivier GUALDONI, chairman / CEO of DRONE VOLT. Availability:

Additional information on: https://www. dronevolt.com/en/expert-solutions/airshadow/ About DRONE VOLT Founded in 2011, DRONE VOLT, is an expert in onboard artificial intelligence and manufacturer of professional civilian drones with operations in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, the United States, Switzerland and Indonesia. A global partner, DRONE VOLT offers its clients turnkey business solutions including different services and the training of drone pilots.

The DRONE VOLT Group, a member of GICAT (French land and air-land defense and security industry group), recorded sales of 7.42 million euros in 2018 (non-audited figures).

DRONE VOLT’s customers notably include government administrations and industrial groups such as the French army, the French Ministry of Defense, Engie, Total, Bouygues ES, ADP, the Air Transport Gendarmerie (GTA) and international government agencies.

DRONE VOLT has been designated as an “Innovative Enterprise” by Bpifrance.

Orders will be accepted starting February 5, 2019.

The go-to tool for leading professionals

‘You’re the hero’ • View all national and international security events • Promote your event on the home page • Upload whitepapers

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Airobotics is first to receive CASA approval for BVLOS drone flights from remote operations Center

Leading automated drone startup Airobotics has recently made Australian aviation history by obtaining the nation’s first and only Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) approval to operate automated multi-rotor drones from its Remote Operations Center (ROC) beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) with no aircrew needed at the client site.

Alternatively, Remote Pilots are located within Airobotics Australia’s ROC, at a designated Remote Pilot Station (RPS), operating more than 1,000 km away from onsite systems at the customer sites. This new “man on the loop” level of operations enables human operators to supervise flights, but without requiring “man in the loop” pilots to intervene in flight operations.

Niv Russo, Airobotics’ Vice President of Aviation and Compliance stated: “This landmark approval is a major achievement for Airobotics and its future growth across Australia.

Removing aircrews from potentially dangerous environments, like mines, enables customers to extract maximum value and reduce risk from their business operations by leveraging technology and automation. This progression marks the next step for Airobotics as we continue to break new ground in unmanned drone technology to deliver safer and more accurate, data-driven solutions.”

“The ROC approval sets a new benchmark for unmanned drone operations for the Asia-Pacific region, and given the technical complexity that has been overcome, is a real testament to our in-country capability,” said Joe

24 | DrasticNews.com

Urli, Airobotics’ Director of Flight Operations and Chief Remote Pilot. “Airobotics’ unmanned drone platform significantly benefits our clients, providing them with operations that increase efficiency whilst saving operational costs and empowering flight crews to operate in secure locations hundreds of miles away from hazardous sites.”

Urli added, “We’d like to extend our utmost gratitude and appreciation to the CASA RPAS team members who worked collaboratively with Airobotics over many months in achieving this first-of-its-kind approval. This milestone is a credit to our dedication and constant desire to improve the processes that have made Airobotics the region’s leading unmanned aviation company.”

Airobotics’ automated solution represents the next generation of drone operations, overtaking standard piloted services which can be prohibitive, imprecise and not always available. The company is the first and only drone solution worldwide permitted to fly without a human operator (certification from Civil Aviation Authority of Israel, March 2017, and certification from the US Federal Aviation Administration, December 2018, see here and here for more details). This positions Airobotics as the only drone company certified to fly BVLOS in the US, Australia and Israel, three countries considered to be in the cutting edge of UAV regulations.

Honors and Awards: Airobotics was selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of the Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch in 2018

and as one of the world’s “Most Innovative Companies” by Fast Company. The company received Frost & Sullivan’s 2018 Global New Product Innovation Award and the 2017 Edison Award for innovation and excellence as well.

About Airobotics Airobotics has developed a pilotless drone solution, the first of its kind in the global market. Airobotics provides an end-to-end, fully automatic solution for collecting aerial data and gaining invaluable insights. The industrial grade platform is available on-site and on-demand, enabling industrial facilities to access premium aerial data in a faster, safer, more efficient way.

The team at Airobotics fuses expertise in aerospace hardware design, robust electronic systems, leading software engineering, and years of experience in commercial drone operations. This varied experience has allowed them to design a solution suited to address the needs of the world’s most complex industrial environments. To learn more, visit: www. airoboticsdrones.com and follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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World’s most intelligent lifestyle drone arrives on Australian shores this summer as help to discover and document Australia’s varying marine life.”

PowerDolphin is available to pre-order now from www.powervision.me RRP: $1299 Power Ray is available to buy online from www. powervision.me RRP: $2299 Order before 31st December to receive 30% OFF PowerRay

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Equipped with 4K UHD, 220° rotating camera, capturing footage above & under water Intelligent fishing experience with all technology, fish-finder and bait container 1000m wireless range with real-time 1080p footage transmission Rescue response faster than Olympic swimmers

PowerVision is launching the world’s first multi-functional water drone which will benefit Australia’s fishing advocates, divers and water sports enthusiasts.

Equipped with a 220° dual-joint rotation camera, the PowerDolphin can capture 4K Ultra-High-Definition footage at the heart of the surf action. The camera can rotate 70° above water and 150° below the water, sending real-time 1080 pixel footage wirelessly to your mobile phone through the Vision+ app, with a maximum transmission distance of 1000m.

The drone includes adjustable front lights to capture stunning illuminated photography in various water conditions.

PowerDolphin provides an intelligent fishing experience with an integrated PowerSeeker that fishing enthusiasts will love.

The PowerSeeker detects fish within a range of 131ft and travels by waypoint to the perfect fishing spot utilising the built-in sonar GPS to plot the ocean floor.

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This cutting-edge technology will tow hooks, lure fish, release bait and capture fish at a distance of up to 1000m, reaching further then a fishing rod. Once the fish bites down on the bait, the PowerDolphin will automatically drag itself back to the controller.

The PowerDolphin can travel at a speed of 5m per second, faster than the Olympic record for the 100m freestyle. A helpful technology for Australia’s lifesavers, PowerDolphin’s robust design and 3 speed gears enables it to tow and remotely release lifejackets, lifebuoys and other rescue equipment quickly and efficiently.

The drone acts a first responder and can reach struggling swimmers and marine incidents before emergency services.

PowerVision has revolutionised the drone industry and has previously launched PowerRay, the world’s first underwater drone. With a 4K UHD camera and streamline design, it’s able to capture dynamic video and photography of life under sea at a staggering depth of 98ft.

“The PowerDolphin is a new lifestyle robot that is not only suitable for Australia’s water sports, photography and fishing enthusiasts, but can also help to protect the country’s shorelines with rescue response.” explains Wally Zheng, the Founder and CEO of PowerVision.

“PowerDolphin provides a new perspective of life under the sea and can assist marine scientists with underwater mapping, as well

About PowerVision Founded in 2009 with the goal to innovate the future, PowerVision has introduced intelligent robot products for consumers to use around the world, for both business and pleasure.

Products from PowerVision can continuously increase performance and capabilities as the world evolves. PowerVision comprises of nearly 500 employees across China, U.S, Japan, U.K, Canada, France, Germany and Finland.

WELCOME TO ACUO The peak industry body for the unmanned sector of aviation

www.acuo.org.au

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Microsoft becomes the first global cloud provider to achieve certification for protected data in Australia Microsoft is the first global cloud provider to be awarded Certification for Protected data in Australia, dramatically accelerating the opportunity for all levels of Government and National Critical Infrastructure to advance their use of secure cloud computing.

Microsoft Azure and Office 365 have been awarded Protected Certification by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), for inclusion in the Certified Cloud Services List (CCSL). This is a major milestone that Microsoft has been working towards in partnership with Government since 2014 and unleashes an enormous digital transformation opportunity across the public sector in both Australia and New Zealand.

This coincides with the announcement earlier today from Microsoft of the availability of Azure Australia Central regions, two new Microsoft Azure cloud regions located within highly secure, resilient, Australian-owned facilities of Canberra Data Centres. These regions are specifically designed to support mission-critical demands of government and critical national infrastructure.

This announcement creates a clear path for Government agencies to host higher classified data sets in Microsoft cloud services and will accelerate the ability for Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments to adopt cloud – confident in the knowledge that Azure and Office 365 have undergone this very high level of assurance.

Steven Worrall, managing director, Microsoft Australia was delighted that Microsoft’s Azure and Office 365 are the first global public cloud services to achieve Protected level certification in this country.

“This injects new opportunities for public sector innovation, transformation and service agility thanks to the range of sophisticated Azure services already available and certified.

Office 365 will support the Australian government’s ambitions to streamline government processes and digitally transform public sector workplaces. At the same time agencies can avail themselves of the mature and open ecosystem of partners and developers who build on the Azure cloud.” he said.

The Protected certification follows the announcement in 2017 that 40 Azure services and 10 Office 365 services had received ASD certification to handle Unclassified (DLM) data. Within those services 35 were formally assessed for Protected Certification. With

26 | DrasticNews.com

the announcement today, Australian Signals Directorate has formally certified those services for inclusion on the CCSL. The clear appetite for more cloud-based solutions was reinforced by the Federal Government’s Secure Cloud Strategy[1] released in February. The Strategy illustrates how cloud offers reusable digital platforms at a lower cost and shifts service deliver to a faster more reliable digital channel. The Strategy notes that cloud services could make Government more responsive, convenient, available and user focused. It enables flexibility for government agencies to advance with cloud services, while emphasising the central importance of the extensive assurance processes of the Australian Signals Directorate for widely used services like Azure and Office 365.

Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security Angus Taylor said awarding the certification to Microsoft will accelerate the ability for Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments to adopt cloud technology, confident in the knowledge that Azure and Office 365 have undergone this rigorous level of assurance.

“It has never been more important for government and Australian enterprises to strategically manage cyber security risks,” Minister Taylor said.

“Australia is under increasing cyber security threat and as government and critical infrastructure innovate and transform, it is imperative that we remove risk in our existing systems and use modern, secure cloud technology.

“Awarding Microsoft the Protected Certification reflects the Turnbull Government’s commitment to prioritise and deliver secure cloud services, ensuring a very high level of security for Australians.

“The Australian Government welcomes Microsoft’s investment in the Australian public sector as well as an initiative to deliver cloud computing skills to an additional 5,000 employees by 2020.”

Microsoft Australia managing director Steven Worrall said the Protected Certification, in conjunction with the substantial investment in our existing Australian data centre regions to handle Protected data and the two new Canberra based Microsoft Azure cloud regions demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to public sector. Microsoft will have four regions certified and able to service Protected

workloads for our customers.

“That ensures service resilience, and our Protected certification demonstrates the high degree of trust that the Government places in Office 365 and Azure services,” added Worrall.

The security and management of Government data is directed by the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) and Information Security Manual (ISM) which provide mandatory guidance to ensure agencies remain compliant.

James Kavanagh, Microsoft Azure Engineering Lead for Australia & New Zealand said; “We embarked on this journey in 2014 with the first assessment of Microsoft Azure for compliance with Australian government security controls.

In the four years since, we’ve engineered new security innovations into our software, we’ve enhanced our personnel and physical security right across Australia, we’ve established new relationships and capabilities for cybersecurity and most recently we’ve opened new cloud regions dedicated to government and national critical infrastructure” “Most importantly, we’ve done all of this in partnership with the Australian Government towards one shared goal – to ensure that government and critical infrastructure sectors of Australia have access to the best innovation, with absolute confidence in the rigorous level of security and privacy that Australians expect.”

The security controls required for Protected Certification of Azure and Office 365 have been implemented in all Australian regions where the Microsoft cloud is available: Sydney, Melbourne and now Canberra.

The Azure Central regions offer some unique additional capabilities for connectivity, resilience and hybrid flexibility that will provide further assurance to government and national critical infrastructure customers with mission critical needs. With the background of new legislation in the form of the Critical Infrastructure Security Bill that require national critical infrastructure organisations to monitor and report on the security of their information supply chain, the Australian ownership and premium security capabilities of Canberra Data Centres is also compelling.

Citadel Group uses Azure for national security app A ground-breaking national security platform that would mobilise citizen’s smartphones as critical incident data sources is

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under development. The prototype app is being created by ASX-listed The Citadel Group and runs on Microsoft’s new Azure Australia Central.

The app is being designed to allow real time video uploads and information capture to enhance national security. The app would let users instantly collect data, such as video and audio, which along with telemetry information from the phone itself, can be transmitted to a centralised command and control centre.

The solution is being designed so that data coming from multiple sources can be instantly consolidated and analysed. It will perform analytics on the incoming data streams to generate real time intelligence about a situation to help direct rapid response when and where

it is needed. The app could also be used to actively push notifications out to citizens and users with alerts as required.

Citadel CEO Darren Stanley said “The concept for the solution can be traced back to the day of the Lindt siege terror attack when it became clear the first responders did not have immediate access to real time information they needed to rapidly deal with the situation. We felt we could design and develop a citizen-centric solution to make that information available and keep people safe.

“In simple terms this turns a smartphone into an intelligence reporting device. Citizens choose to report this information. From a national security perspective, you see

something, you’re in a bad situation, you hear an explosion. Even if you can’t tell if it was actually an explosion or just a car backfiring, you’re able to submit your recording.

“Now emergency services can see what people are seeing, hear what people are hearing and understand whether it’s a single incident or co-ordinated attack.

“Instead of three separate incidents being called in separately and treated individually, the in-built analytics of this platform determines that there are three incidents reported within two kilometres of each other which are atypical and may be a co-ordinated attack. Traditionally that sort of insight may take hours to develop – this app makes it seamless.”

Predator-series aircraft pass five million flight hour mark General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has announced that its Predator®-series family of Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), encompassing Predator, Predator B, Gray Eagle, and Avenger® lines, has achieved a historic industry milestone: five million flight hours. The milestone was achieved on April 4, with 360,311 total missions completed and more than 90 percent of all missions flown in combat.

“Five million flight hours is a testament to the reliability of our RPA systems that are designed, built, and maintained by a dedicated group of skilled and innovative professionals for operations around the world,” said Linden Blue, CEO, GA-ASI. “Our 25-year history has produced a list of ‘firsts’ in RPA development and we have leveraged this progress to apply the latest technology and advancement in our new and improved aircraft, such as the MQ-9B SkyGuardian™.”

The identification of the specific aircraft and customer that achieved the milestone is unknown as every second of every day, 69 Predator-class Medium-altitude, Longendurance aircraft are airborne worldwide.

Flight hours have continued to grow at unprecedented rates in recent years, with 500,000 flight hours achieved from 1993 to 2008, one million hours in 2010, two million hours in 2012, three million hours in 2014, and four million hours in 2016.

“The demand for persistent situational awareness using GA-ASI RPA is demonstrated daily through the increasing accumulation of flight hours. This demand is consistently answered by our team of employees, suppliers, and partners who work hard to meet our customers’ dynamic mission requirements,” said David R. Alexander, president, Aircraft

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Systems, GA-ASI. Recently GA-ASI’s Predator B/MQ-9 Reaper fleet passed its own historic milestone, achieving two million flight hours on November 12, 2017 after flying approximately 143,279 total sorties. Predator B/MQ-9 Reaper flight hours now account for approximately 40 percent of GA-ASI’s five million total flight hours and are increasing at an average rate of 37,000 hours a month.

GA-ASI has more than 8,000 employees with 1135 employees and subcontractors deployed worldwide. On average, GA-ASI produces approximately eight aircraft per month.

GA-ASI aircraft average over 50,000 hours per month supporting the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, NASA, the Italian Air Force, the Royal Air Force, the French Air Force, the UAE Armed Forces, and other customers. Missions include helping protect ground units on the battlefield; supporting U.S. Customs & Border Protection operations, and first responders in the wake of natural disasters. These aircraft systems continue to maintain the highest operational availability rates in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army aircraft inventories. GA-ASI has produced more than 825 aircraft to date and over 300 Ground Control Stations (GCS).

The Predator-series family includes Predator A and Predator XP; Predator B/MQ-9B Reaper, Guardian, Predator B/MQ-9B Reaper Extended Range (ER), MQ-9B SkyGuardian, and SeaGuardian; Gray Eagle/ER; and Predator C Avenger/ER. High-resolution photos of Predator-series aircraft are available to qualified media outlets from the listed GA-ASI media contact.

About GA-ASI General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI), an affiliate of General Atomics, is a leading designer and manufacturer of proven, reliable Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) systems, radars, and electro-optic and related mission systems, including the Predator® RPA series and the Lynx® Multi-mode Radar. With more than 5 million flight hours, GA-ASI provides long-endurance, mission-capable aircraft with integrated sensor and data link systems required to deliver persistent flight that enables situational awareness and rapid strike. The company also produces a variety of ground control stations and sensor control/image analysis software, offers pilot training and support services, and develops meta-material antennas. For more information, visit www. ga-asi.com.

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Cover Feature DrasticNews.com Cover Feature

By Ron Bartsch

I

f 900g of weapons-grade anthrax were dropped from a drone at a height of 100m just upwind of a large city of 1.5 million people, all inhabitants would become infected.

Even with the most aggressive medical measures that can realistically be taken during an epidemic, a study estimates that approximately 123,000 people would die—40 times more fatalities than from the 2001 World Trade Centre terrorist attacks.

Chilling Scenarios The chilling scenario above was one that was put forward more than a decade ago by Eugene Miasnikov in his report “Threat of Terrorism Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” (2005). If drones in the hands of terrorists back in 2005 caused a plausible threat, imagine the threat that exists today. As science and technological innovation continues to rampage we often lose sight of how much the world has

28 | DrasticNews.com

changed—and in this instance, the extent to which terrorists will go to in order to achieve their objectives. With this is mind, consider the following modern-day scenario.

A terrorist organisation parks a small removals van in a crowded street of a major city under the flight path of a nearby international airport. The van’s canopy has an open top but the sides are high and its payload of half a dozen high-performance quadcopter drones are obscured from the view of passers-by. To each drone is attached an explosive device—not dissimilar to those worn by suicide terrorists. The day and time chosen have been well planned to coincide with the runway being used for take-off. The targeted aircraft—an Airbus A380—is departing with a full payload of passengers and fuel, possibly in excess of 500 passengers and over 250 tonnes of fuel. The aircraft lifts off and the drones are launched remotely and rapidly ascend.

With the aid of the high-resolution cameras on-board, the controllers are able to direct the drones into the path of the

DrasticNews.com Cover Cover Feature Feature

If 900g of weapons-grade anthrax were dropped from a drone at a height of 100m just upwind of a large city of 1.5 million people, all inhabitants would become infected.

A380’s four enormous engines. The situation described above is not inconceivable. Hoping that such a deplorable act upon humanity would never eventuate is no deterrent to the minds of terrorists seeking to inflict maximum carnage and media attention.

What is the scope of the drone terrorist threat?

Outside areas of civil unrest and war zones, there are increasing instances of home-grown drone terrorism. In 2012 the USA came under threat when a graduate student from Massachusetts plotted to strap plastic explosives to small drones and fly them into the Pentagon, the White House and the US Capitol building. In Japan it has been reported that a drone carrying a bottle of radioactive sand from Fukushima landed at the office of the Japanese Prime Minister in April 2015. In the UK the Metropolitan Police has

recorded over 30 suspicious drone flying incidents around London between 2015 and 2016. Unidentified drones have also been flown over various landmarks in France, including the US Embassy and the Eiffel Tower. In 2016 at the Euro Cup qualifying match between Albania and Serbia the game was abandoned after a drone carrying a pro-Albanian banner was seen flying over the pitch. The incident caused brawls to break out between players, team officials and fans.

An alarming report, “The Hostile Use of Drones� (Abbott et al., 2016) was released in the UK in 2016 and warns that terrorists wanting to cause chaos, such as attacking nuclear power stations, have the potential to convert drones that are currently commercially available into flying armed missiles. The report suggests that the technology of remote control warfare is impossible to control. A UK government counter-terrorism adviser, Detective Chief Inspector Colin Smith, has warned that terrorists could use commercially available drones to attack passenger planes. The security

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...over 500,000 drones were registered in the first few months of October 2015. It has also been suggested that drone controllers should be subjected, at a minimum, to the same background check standards as persons granted unescorted access to security restricted areas of airports

expert warned that small quadcopter drones could easily be used by terrorists for attacks and propaganda purposes.

Terrorists could fly drones into an engine or load them with explosives to try to bring down a commercial airliner. Smith poses the question: “Are drone mitigation strategies going to be like the concrete bollards in front of airport terminals—something we can expect once the horse has bolted?”

Recently in the US, the Department of Homeland Security issued a terror alert warning that drones could be used by terrorists to attack commercial aircraft after three drones were spotted in a single weekend in late 2015 flying above JFK International Airport. The sighting of the first drone was reported by the crew of a JetBlue flight arriving from Haiti. Just 2.5 hours later a Delta pilot, arriving at JFK from Orlando, reported a drone at approximately 1,400 ft. and only 100 ft. below the aircraft. The third report was from a Shuttle America flight arriving from Richmond, Virginia.

And all this in the space of just two days.

Combating the threat Aviation is generally regarded as the most strictly and extensively regulated industry. It is therefore logical to conclude that the solution for controlling this new form of aircraft will be found in passing relevant laws and regulations. However, attempting to legislate against random acts of stupidity is difficult, particularly in the fastmoving world of technology. Also, “don’t be an idiot” lacks legal clarity. Jonathan Rupprecht, a Florida-based lawyer specializing in unmanned aircraft, divides stupid drone owners into two groups, the “how high can it fly” group and the “I will fly it wherever I want” group. Obviously the latter

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grouping may also include acts of terrorism.

It is the freedom and agility by which aeronautical activities can readily transcend previously restrictive geographic and political boundaries that truly differentiates flying from all other modes of transport. To harness this freedom for the betterment of all, aviation regulation provides the requisite authority, responsibility and sanctions.

The regulation of aerial activities is as fundamental and rudimentary to the aviation industry as civil order is to modern society.

In no other field of human endeavour or branch of law does there exist such a vital yet symbiotic relationship.

International harmonization of aviation standards have been achieved through treaties. The Chicago Convention of 1944 is by far the most prolifically ratified international treaty.

More than 190sovereign states have ratified this convention and in so doing have agreed, under international air law, to be bound by the technical and operational standards developed by ICAO.

Compulsory registration of drones As drones become more common, many governments are considering a number of options to restrict their use.

Registration of drones, as with cars, airplanes or even guns, is now being introduced all over the world with the FAA leading the way, and over 500,000 drones were registered in the first few months of October 2015. It has also been suggested that drone controllers should be subjected, at a minimum, to the same background check standards as persons granted unescorted access to security restricted areas of airports as is required under ICAO Annex 17.

The UK and Australia are also building similar registration systems to follow suit. It’s far from clear how registration would mitigate an act of terrorism, as it is more of a system for tracking law-abiding citizen’s drones.

David Dunn (2016), Professor of International Politics at Birmingham University, believes that any licensing system is unlikely to deter terrorists:

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Law abiding citizens are likely to register, but it would be very difficult to stop terrorists and other criminals from purchasing drones abroad and then using them here. Up until now it was expensive and required skill to be able to fly an aircraft—which acted as a form a regulation in itself. Now, you can fly these things relatively easily over people’s heads. In the UK the House of Lords has called upon the EU to introduce a compulsory registration system for the devices, but the plans have stalled. Drone owners currently don’t have to register their devices in the UK, but operators need permission from the British CAA to fly them for commercial purposes or over long distances. Currently in the UK, anyone can own and operate a drone for noncommercial purposes that weighs less than 20kg (3st 2lb).

Mitigating the drone terrorist threat?

As we have seen above, it is obvious that legislative restrictions alone on the use of drones would in most instances prove to be futile when it comes to acts of dronerelated terrorism. There has been very little indication that governments are prepared to prohibit the importation or manufacture of drones or even of limiting the payload capacity of commercial drones that are sold. Further complicating this issue is the fact that, in many instances, drones are purchased online.

Creating a greater awareness in the broader community of the extent to which drones may be used by terrorists (and other criminals) including publicizing the dangers— without hysterics—may be a good start. Also, manufacturers and distributors of drones and training establishments throughout the world should be more vigilant of the possible use of drones for terrorist activities.

By way of parallel, many governments have passed legislation requiring retailers of chlorine (for swimming pools) and household fertilizers to report certain sales or suspicious transactions. International arrangements regulating the export of drone technology could be refined and strengthened with terrorist activities in mind, with special attention on drones equipped with technologies that can evade radar or have highperformance capabilities.

While the rapid advancement of drone technological development has created the problem it may also provide the solution. By far the most effective method of protecting targets from drone attacks may be with the installation (or possibly mandating) of geo-fencing or g-gate technology software. Pre-programing geo-fencing areas would mean that drones would be automatically shut down if they tried to enter certain sites. NASA is also currently working on a tracking system but a working prototype is not expected until 2019.

Drone manufacturers could be required to install the GPS coordinates of government-mandated no-fly zones and have drones automatically shut down if they approach such a space. DJI, the world’s largest commercial dronemaker, is one of the leaders in geo-fencing technology.

With drone sales in excess of US$1 billion in 2015, it recently released its geo-fencing software to restrict drones from flying near aerodromes and other restricted areas on

a worldwide basis.

The drones will no longer be able to fly near wildfires, prisons, power plants, near professional sporting events or areas the US president is visiting. It is proposed that all DJI drones will have the software installed by default. In practice, this means that drones will not be able to enter into, take-off or land in restricted areas.

The software will automatically update with new information on restrictions, meaning drones will be able to respond to changing environments such as areas of natural disasters or one-off sporting events. Other technological defences against the hostile use of drones are with the installation of security alert systems when drones appear in no-fly zones. One American company—DroneShield—has been awarded contracts to protect certain locations from possible terrorist attacks including the Boston Marathon.

It is likely that this technology will be increasing utilized in security-sensitive sites and restricted areas.

In the UK the Remote Control Project, run by the Oxford Research Group, has called on the British government to fund the development of military-style lasers to shoot drones down and the creation of jamming and early-warning systems to be used by police. But such devices would require amendment of UK laws over the use of such jammers.

Laser technology to destroy drones in many instances have failed to live up to expectations either struggling to stay fully powered for long periods or being disrupted by dust and fog. However, in the US, Boeing has unveiled its new laser-powered anti-drone technology. The Compact Laser Weapons System is a portable, tripod-mounted device armed with a high-powered laser that can destroy a quadcopter drone in a matter of seconds. The system is relatively inexpensive to operate and features an unlimited magazine, which means a many drones can be destroyed. However, this system will not be available for a few more years.

About the Author - Ron Bartsch Ron is CEO of Innovating Australia and currently a presiding member with the Commonwealth Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) having held this position on a part-time basis since his appointment in 2013. Ron is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and the University of New South Wales and lectures in Business Law and Technology and International Air Law. Ron was admitted as a barrister in 1993 and then took up a senior management position with the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority and then later was appointed as Head of Safety and Regulatory Compliance for Qantas Airways Limited and held this position until 2009.

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A new race - The now, the soon to be & the 20/20 year horizon: Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Human Convergence

B By Chris Cubbage Editor

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y 2025, most of us will be using an AI Personal Assistant and throughout each day will have engagement with several different robots. By 2030, there may be more robots than humans. By 2050 we could have produced a semi-sentient being.

Just as smart phones and drones emerged rapidly in the 2000s and 2010s, a decade on, the next cycle will be the rapid rise of robots and AI avatars. Taking this to its theoretical end point, we are on our way to creating Earth’s new race.

At its fingertips the new robot race has rapid 3D printing, with transforming ability created by new material sciences, and at scale, control of unmanned mining operations, rail lines and shipping ports. New and exciting robot designs are emerging and decades of human research developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms have reached critical mass for data processing and storage scales. It is all happening at a rapid pace and on the current trajectory will cause another wave of profound technology impact on all our lives, globally.

Having interviewed Liesl Yearsley, CEO & Founder of akin.com, she confirmed her research had identified relationships being formed between humans and AI avatars.

One relationship, called ‘James’ and ‘Lisa’, with Lisa being

a female AI avatar, concerned researchers and determined James was spending a detrimental amount of time engaging with ‘Lisa’. He had formed an emotional relationship, yet knowing Lisa was not a human. Researchers decided to wipe ‘Lisa’ and re-engaged her into the community of hundreds of other avatars. Yet indeed, it turned out James then spent six months re-locating ‘Lisa’ and knew when he had found her despite her in a different role. The ability to create relationships and influence through AI avatars creates new possibilities in social influence, espionage and the insider threat. Just as seen with the manipulation of social media to influence government elections or as a means for recruitment and radicalisation.

The advent of robotics in human form, able to be produced, on mass, being conveniently and promptly 3D printed, is already a reality. Humans and robots, even as life and social partners, is also, already a reality. The next phase, will be humanoid robots operating emotionally, with an AI avatar.

Today’s robots have a diverse application, from nanotechnologies through to driving a renewed capability in multi-planetary space exploration. Confidently, Liesl Yearsley said, “the big thing to get here is that AI is going to be crunching away in the background, it is going to be ambient

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"By 2025, most of us will be using an AI Personal Assistant and throughout each day will have engagement with several different robots. By 2030, there may be more robots than humans. By 2050 we could have produced a semi-sentient being."

and ubiquitous, not to the point of thinking about it, just as we have blindly accepted the use of the smart phone. It will become better at discerning of what’s going on for you, you won’t even need to tell it what you want or what you think, it will know. Society will change.”

Watching closely since 2008, from military and hobbyist interest in unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, they evolved with rapid proliferation. Drones are here to stay, are commonly sighted and form an integral part of operations across a number of industries and domains. It is now the robot’s turn. So much so, the anticipated emergence is driving discussion around much broader social and economic impacts, including transition of workforces and as far as the consideration of releasing a global minimum wage.

Each machine, be it a drone or robot creates, and brings, unique strategic, tactical and operational capabilities.

Across all market verticals, the rise of the robot will be a new challenge with the obvious ‘pros and cons’ for consumers, corporates, governments and security providers seeking greater detection, monitoring, awareness and analytical tools to assist security intelligence and law enforcement.

Behind this driving demand is a rapidly evolving technology and cyber security industry. We are well passed

the advent of the first CCTV Camera and the migration from decade old analogue systems to fully networked and interconnected digital surveillance systems. India and China are both progressing to a wholly cashless society and rolling out compulsory unique human identifiers, such as ID numbers and Social Scoring Systems. Facial recognition forms a core part of most city and transport hub surveillance specification requirements. In China, schools are introducing facial recognition systems.

On scale, we are already approaching human brain function in the connected nodes of the planet and superseding it in terms of computational power. A classic thought experiment in AI was that if you train an AI to make paperclips and then let it lose and it self-optimised, theoretically it would mine the entire planet for materials and create an enormous size pile of paperclips, to the detriment of all else. That’s the theoretical endpoint.

When it comes to Singularity often people think it is far away. Asking the top 200 AI scientists, they consider Singularity to occur within 20 years. Singularity requires two conditions. The first is that the AI can self-optimise. To get better by itself. The other condition is that we don’t stop it.

Imagine an AI system that scans all the literature on machine learning, creates a thousand hypothesis about how to improve, or maybe a million, and then tests a million every minute and generates a slightly better way to improve itself, measure that improvement, increment it, and then continue on again. It is within reason we could do that in the near future. With over twenty years’ experience, Liesl assures, “I see nothing in the evolution of AI that tells me that’s not going to happen.”

“The second condition,” Liesl confirmed, “is we always think Singularity is when ‘it’ gets smarter than us because we have the idea that up until that point we are just going to turn ‘it’ off. Being smarter than us, we really think we are just going to shut it off? But really the definition is about ‘are’ we stopping it? It can have a brain the size of a newt, but if its self-optimising and there is nothing in our systems that says we are going to stop it, theoretically we have already reached a soft point of singularity and won’t know it.”

“If we are creating a new life form, what kind of ‘Gods’ will we be? Do we give them human values, the same values that have enslaved millions and ruined the planet’s

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Liesl Yearsley

Rob Wainwright

environment? We may not agree with other’s cultural values.

Can we be culturally neutral?

The giant tech platforms will just say ‘well we don’t have any control over the content’ – we’re just a platform. Liesl declared, “I don’t think we can be values natural. I think we have to start asking these difficult questions. Let’s start putting some parameters in place, what are we teaching AI to optimise against, because one day it will out evolve us and what is that world going to look like at that point?”

But in addition to the inherent AI Singularity risk to humanity, there is also the inherent human threat with such powerful capabilities. Having interviewed Rob Wainwright, former Executive Director at Europol, on his presentation, ‘Data - the new oil in the network economy fighting crime and terrorism’, highlighted a different age to come. Rob termed this ‘International Policing 2.0’, along with the AI race with crime, security by design and privacy by design.

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Alongside military, industrial and consumer robotics, and the criminal threat they may create, there will be increasing need for security robot deployments. Innovation is needed in new security industry training and simulation methods, including Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) training, use of gaming controls for tactical robotic operations, and a myriad of civil security applications.

“Threats rise along with innovation and capability”, Rob assured. Islamic state showed it was prepared to engage in online disruption and created a virtual califate, using over 100 social media platforms. The new bank robbers, like the Carbonak and Cobalt hacker group, now rob banks and score over $1.2billion.

Criminal enterprise is much more sophisticated and today, sustains a burgeoning trade and crime as a service sector. Even bi-spoked criminal services are increasingly becoming a competitive industry, amongst the criminal community itself. This is a dangerous trend. Bad actors are converging with terror and a crime nexus forms in firearms, travel documents and any other activity with a common link.

State actors are upskilling and upscaling the criminal sector, with Russian capabilities shown to be able to take control of cyber ecosystems, including US Federal Elections. The seeping out of cyber-military skills and capability into the wild is also a dangerous trend.

Police are having some success but the threat will be sustained. The way police use data to identify modern crimes, that are essentially transnational in nature, needs to better targeted and better tracked across disparate information systems. Europol has been instrumental in transforming into a transnational intelligence unit, with over 1,200 law enforcement agencies now part of Europol.

Europol has experienced an exponential rise over the last seven years, with a four fold increase in intelligence reports and six fold increase in cross border operations.

And what are some of the solutions? Dr Hugh Thompson, Chief Technology Officer for Symantec has discussed for IoT Security to have a chance, IoT security will require analytics at scale. The consumers are not participating. How do we get them to contribute? Often misunderstood or overlooked, is the blurring line between enterprise security and personal digital safety. Today, the tech at home is likely to be better than at work, and needing to connect or cross paths.

Better applications of privacy by design are needed and includes the use of something like a nutrition label may be applied to a device. What is the device behaviour graph and image signature that provides network and user insight for security and signature purposes. This also creates consumer awareness.

“To build robots that are ready to handle the challenges of unstructured environments, we need a design process that focuses on adaptation and intelligence. Luckily, we know of an incredibly powerful algorithm that creates intelligent, robust, and adaptive machines already: evolution.” (The Conversation).

Indeed, as humans and technology continue to evolve together, it is inevitable, and possibly within 20 years, that we will have a new sentient race. A new race of human and robotic convergence. Are ‘you’ ready? Are ‘we’ ready?

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The rise of Autonomous vehicles

T By Jane Lo ASM Correspondent

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he first known death caused by a self-driving car occurred last year in May when a Tesla driver put his Model S into an autopilot mode. The car’s sensors, failing to distinguish a white 18-wheel tractor trailer crossing the highway, crashed full speed into it.

Nearly ten months later, an accident involving an Uber self-driving car prompted Uber to suspend its program for driverless cars pending further investigations.

Even more recently, Google added to our doubts about the safety of self-driving cars when they disclosed drivers testing their driverless car Waymo(s), equipped with advanced driver-assistance, fell asleep at the wheel while moving at highway speed; some even put on makeup or hunting for cables and the like in the 2013 experiments.

These incidents do not quieten the sense of unease when it comes to self-driving cars. A lot of the fear stems from the idea that the algorithms driving these cars are not able to make the split second “right” decisions and reactions that human drivers are (deemed) capable of.

Despite these misgivings, automation is on the rise in the transportation sector (and much more). Waymo, Uber, Tesla are not the only game in town. Automobile industry giants Ford, General Motors have also poured millions in this area. The pace of innovation has not sat idle. In the last quarter of 2017, AI-Asia Show at the Art Science Musesum Singapore, and the Singapore International Robo Expo (SIRE) held conferences and discussions to explore the trends, infrastructure and talents in Autonomous Vehicles (AV), among other aspects of automation and robotics.

Singapore’s case for Autonomous Vehicles (AV) At the SIRE’s session on “Requirements to Faciliate Autnonomous Vehicle Deployment in Singapore”, Mr Titus Seah (Minstry of Trasnport, Singapore), elaborating on “MOT’s Vision of AV in Singapore” said: "Self-driving vehicles can radically transform land transportation in

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Singapore to address our two key constraints - land and manpower”.

AV holds the promise of addressing these challenges through transforming the public transportation into one is only convenient but also comfortable, and thereby reducing the demand for private car ownership, and freeing us from the drudgery task of driving to focus on more interesting activities. Moreover, it also presents an opporunity to “shape the design of our cities”, he said. Examples include “reduction of carparks, and and narrower car lanes”.

Singapore’s AV vision is realised through a few stages: town deployment in the next decade, and full operational deployment island-wide after. Trials prior to deployment are conducted in a phases, with the initial phase running in a controlled enivornment ciruit, before progressing to a small scale testbed with safety driver and full control. Final phase is tested in a complex environment, with or without safety driver with limited control.

“The trials will help us shape the mobility concepts which can meet Singapore's needs, and also gain valuable insights into how we can design our towns of the future to take advantage of this technology”, Mr Seah explained.

'The trials will help us shape the mobility concepts which can meet Singapore's needs, and also gain valuable insights into how we can design our towns of the future to take advantage of this technology '

AV technologies in Singapore Mr Colin Lim (Managing Director, SMRT Services), at AI Asia Show’s ”The Inevitable Future of Transportation” panel, said, “unlike autonomous vehicle trials elsewhere, Singapore's focus was to employ the technology for public transport such as buses, shuttles, taxis, which is important to reducing demand for private transport and congestion”.

Trialling AV in Singapore is ideal - neither wintry conditions nor heavy monsoon floods, clearly marked roads well-planned traffic system, and drivers who tend to obey highway code. With a government that has set out a clear AV vision, and who cultivates the art of the possible, Singapore has seen a few successful trials.

AV in Singapore went public in 2015 within an enclosed ground with the 10-seater Auto Riders that shuttled visitors around Gardens-by-the-Bay. During the same year, testing began in the 2.5-squaremile business and residential district "One-North", for the first trialling of AVs on public roads alongside human drivers.

Another important milestone was achieved in August 2016, when nuTonomy kicked off a pilot scheme offering the first ever self-driving taxis available to the public. While companies including Google had been testing self-driving cars on public roads for several years, nuTonomy, a spin-off of the MIT / SMART (Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology), said it was the first to offer rides to the public. It even beat Uber by a few weeks.

Each nuTonomy car — modified Renault Zoe electric vehicles — is fitted with a variety of sensors (LIDAR, cameras, and radar) used to detect obstacles and traffic lights. Data collected as part of its trials in One-North - on vehicle performance, routing efficiency, vehicle booking process, and passenger experience – is used to continually improve the company's software. The company aims to roll out a fullyautonomous mobility service in Singapore in 2018.

Dr Eng You Hong (Postdoctoral Associate, Singapore

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– MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, Singapore), elaborated on “Experiences in Conducting the AV Trial at One-North”, and challenged us to imagine “an integrated autonomous train, car and shuttle system; providing mbility on demand, for both passsents and goods, which is completely adpaitve to how the landscape of any city changes.”

Based on a research *, it was predicted that with Singaore’s 2011 population of 5 million, only 300,000 autonomous mobility-on-demand shared vehicles are needed, representing a significant reduction of the approximately 1million vehicles on the roads of 2011. *K Spieser, K Treleaven, R Zhang, E Frazzoli, D. Morton, and M. Pavone. Towards a systematic approaach to the design and evaluation of automated mobility-on-demand systems: a case study in Singapore. In S Beikr, editor, Road Vehicle Automation Lecture Notes in Mobilitiy.

Springers, 2014.

Doug Parker (nuTonomy's Chief Operating Officer), said at AI-Show Asia 2017, that "when you are able to take that many cars off the road, it creates a lot of possibilities. You can create smaller roads, you can create much smaller car parks." He added "I think it will change how people interact with the city going forward."

Running concurrently with the One-North trial is the 2-year mobility-on-demand autonomous (MODA) shuttle trials at Sentosa. Offering the real-world challenges of a mixed-use transport system within the confines of a closed environment, Sentosa is a unique test bed. Integrated into its existing network of on-island bus, tram and monorail infrastructure, the shuttle, a 15-seater Navya Arma minibus, was showcased by ST Kinetics (title sponsor of SIRE 2017). Insights gained from the trial, such as technical and infrastructural features, and commuter behaviour and mindsets, are used for evaluating the deployment of AV in other areas of Singapore.

ST Kinetics’s AV technologies are also being developed for larger 40-seater electric MODA buses equipped with GPS, sensors, detection radars and sonars, and more complex navigation functions such as increasing speed capabilities under heavier rain conditions.

In addition to public transportation, AV is also trialling for industry applications, with Asia's first launched by the Belgian logistics company, Katoen Natie, at an ExxonMobil plant in Singapore's chemical industry hub.

Developed by Katoen Natie in co-operation with Dutch manufacturer VDL Groep, the driverless truck’s transponders communicate with road sensors within the plant, to transport bags of polymer from a packaging center to a storage facility 3-4km away, with the aim to expand the pilot with 11 additional GPS-enabled driverless trucks in the near future.

Other commercial pilots include the 30 electricpowered dollies that move containers at the terminals of PSA International, the government-owned port operator, and its "truck platooning" project where three driverless trucks tag via wireless communication a manned-truck on a 10km public road stretch between two port terminals.

Most recently, to further catalyse Singapore to become a global player in urban mobility solutions, a 1.5km test

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'Autonomous vehicles are still in trial phase, hence sufficient realistic field data may not be available in next few years. An integrated simulator can prove highly useful in bridging that gap' circuit that replicates various elements of Singapore roads, such as common traffic schemes and rules, was launched.

Jointly developed by the government and the Nanyang Technological University, the 2ha facility also has a rain simulator and flood zone to put AVs' navigational abilities to the test under these conditions.

What are AV’s enablers?

By integrating processes with GPS and digital data culled from phone apps to optimsie pick-ups and drop-offs, the Fleet Management System (FMS) enables the control of fleet operations including energy and speed management.

Explaining that simulation plays an important in the FMS design, Justin Dauwels (Deputy Director, ST Engineering –NTU Corporate Lab) at SIRE2017 said: “Autonomous vehicles are still in trial phase, hence sufficient realistic field data may not be available in next few years. An integrated simulator can prove highly useful in bridging that gap”.

Further, simulations become more critical as the technology matures to handle multi-traponsportation system, customer demand modelling, and integration of real-time traffic data.

AV deployment is not possible without the ecosystem of engineering skills coupled with certifications standards and framework for validating safety, security and performance functional safety. This was hlighted by Dr Martin Saebeck (Principal Technology Conultat, TUV SUD) at SIRE 2017, “as the pace of technology advancement surpass legislations adnd standard bodies, stakeholders in technnology development and adoption carry the responsibility to mitigate the risks for scalable and dependable automation technology”.

Ethics, Law and Anthropomorphization In Saudi Arabia, Sophia, the robot made headlines when it was granted citizenship. “I am very honored and proud for this unique distinction. This is historical to be the first robot in the world to be recognized with a citizenship”, she (it) said. How her claim holds up in court will not only set a legal precedent, but also pave way for how we think about how robotics and automation impact various aspects of our lives.

AV is exciting because of the benefits it brings. Aside from freeing us to perform more value-added tasks while we are in-transit, there is plenty to look forward to: imagine that we no longer have to worry about drink-and-drive, or falling asleep at the wheel, or be embarrassed about poor

parking skills.

But, many questions remain. Some are software (are there robust data sets for different regions or climates); some are security related (how easily is the AV hacked), or legal (who is responsible if an AV crash). And some require business model changes (what does an AV insurance cover).

Matt Pollins (Partner, Head of Comemrical and Technology – Media and Telecommunications, CMS Singapore), at the AI-Asia Show, speaking on “Legal Issues in Artificial Intelligence: Who regulates the machines?”, questioned “What happens if Intelligent machines commit crimes? Who owns IP generated by AI?” Amongst concerns such as privacy, biased algorithms, cybersecurity, perhaps how the AV will arrive at an answer to a moral dilemma occupies us most.

Dr. Ian Kerr (Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology, and Full Professor Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa), on his talk “Predicting AI: The Past, Present and Future Promise of Artificial Intelligence“ (as part of the High Commission of Canada’s Speaker Series to mark Canada’s 150th Anniversary) presented the classic thought experiment in ethics: the “Trolley Problem”: There is a railway-trolley barreling down towards a group of five people strapped onto the tracks. We are standing some distance off next to a lever, faced with two choices: (1) pull the lever which diverts the trolley onto the side track – though this will kill the one person who tied up on this other track or (2) do nothing and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.

He explained that our expectations towards nonhumans tend to be “anthropomorphised”. Projecting our humanity onto AV, we expect the AV to embody similar human traits, emotions, intentions and react like us. So in the Trolley problem, we will probably program the “right” answer given by an individual or a group into the AV. However, he catuioned that by default, artificial intelligence is “unpredictable by design” and it is “impossible to recognise all scnearios”. Moreover, as “machine autonomy increase, human controls decreases”.

The “foresseability problem” – that “AI can be autonomous and operate in ways that are unforeseeable by the original programmers, giving rise a potential laibility gap”, * was highlighted by Mr Matt Pollins. * Regulating Aritifical intelligence systems: Risks, Challenges, Competencies, and Stragies., Havard Journal of Law and Technology, Vol. 29, No. 2, Spring 2016, by Matthew U. Scherer Whether we talk about Narrow AI (which operates in ways that are no longer under the control of those who are legally responsible for it), or General AI (which eludes the control of all human beings), we undoubtedly conjure up science-fi images of Terminators and where lethal autonomous robots are weaponized and kill-decisions are delegated to the machine.

What can we do? Dr Kerr suggested an international norms be agreed under a United Nations framework, so that AI is for the good of humanity. Danit Gal (IEEE, Chair of Outreach Committee), speaking on “The Ethics of Artificial Intellignece in Asia”, emhapised the need for a “kill swtich” and “to fail safely”.

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SAE International’s J3016 “International’s Levels of Driving Automation for On-Road Vehicles” Six Levels of Driving Automation Photo Credit: SAE International and J3016

When will atuonomous vehicles arrive?

Mr Koh Poh Koon (Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry), opened the Singapore International Robo Expo, noting “we are at the cusp of the next phase of industrial revolution, where traditional business models are being disrupted by technological advances in areas such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Data Analytics, and Robotics”.

From driverless cabs to commerical trucks, from tests in closed environments to trialling in public roads, Singapore has demonstrated that automated driving is coming; yet, many of us are still convinced that we are no closer to experiencing driverless cars in our everyday lives.

How do we make sense of what is really possible in this brave new world of self-driving vehicles?

One way: standardise the definitions and expectations of what we mean by “self-driving”.

SAE International’s J3016 (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers) “International’s Levels of Driving Automation for On-Road Vehicles” (issued January 2014) sets out a common taxonomy and definitions, for six levels of driving automation that spans from no automation to full automation.

• The first three levels rely on humans to perform the dynamic driving task. This task includes the operational (steering, braking, accelerating, monitoring the vehicle and roadway) and tactical (responding to events, determining when to change lanes, turn, use signals) * • The next three levels delegate the entire dynamic

40 | DrasticNews.com

driving task to the automated driving system with varying degrees of human back-up intervention under increasingly complex environments. The idea is that we can be totally free to read a book or finish up an article while the software worries about the driving.

• The last 6th level is the fully automated car.

In likelihood, level six is what we have in mind when we think of a driverless car. While most believe that is probably decades away, we humans simply have poor track record when it comes to forecasting technological breakthroughs.

That within half a century of Thomas Watson’s prediction that "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," – whose company IBM went onto develop Watson famed for its Jeopardy matches against human players and in whose home country witnessed the proliferation of PC in nearly every home – proves that the potential of bleeding edge technology does sometimes surpass our capacity to imagine the impossible.

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The security implications of driverless vehicles

T By Keith Suter Managing Director Global Directions

his article is designed to help us think about the unthinkable. Mass produced motor vehicles have transformed our life in the past century or so. We are now apparently only a few years away from another dramatic transformation. But there is little public discussion in readiness for the new era.

Henry Ford’s revolutionary method of mass production (which we now take for granted) not only changed our methods of transportation but also created its own economic and social eco-system. Thus, cars and trucks could travel long distances; gas stations were needed for refuelling; road side café’s refuelled the passengers; fast food outlets increased the delivery of food. A whole new consumer culture emerged. Healthcare experts might also complain about the increased costs, such as road accidents and the risks of a sedentary way of life.

The Next Big Disruption The next big digital disruption will be self-driving vehicles: vehicles that do not need a human driver. They eventually will not even have a driving wheel or “front seat”. The consumer will call up a car via their app. The vehicle will take them to their destination, debit their bank account, and drive off to the next consumer.

Uber, which is an investor in this new technology, is already getting users accustomed to not needing their own personal vehicle. Acquiring one’s own first motor vehicle used to be a rite of passage for young people; now that is ending. Uber is getting people used to not owning cars.

42 42 || DrasticNews.com DrasticNews.com

Instead a customer may now call up a human driver to take them from one point to another. The next stage will be to remove the human driver.

The driverless revolution contains a number of promises. Self-driving vehicles will provide: safety (most current accidents involve human error such as texting while driving or driving under the influence of alcohol), convenience (no need to worry about where to park a car) and efficiency (people will have more time to work in their vehicles).

The cars will also communicate with each other and so they can work together to reduce traffic jams; the passenger will decide on the destination and leave it to the car to go via the best available route. A new industry will emerge to cater for what goes inside the vehicle: entertainment systems will be built into the vehicle to occupy time while the vehicle is moving.

Two demographic groups that may urge greater attention to this revolution are: people with disabilities, and older people who can no longer hold a driver’s licence. Both groups will see the potential for their increased mobility.

Currently an average car spends only two per cent of its life on active service; the other 98 per cent is spent being parked somewhere. Self-driving cars will mean less space needed to be reserved for car parks (which are storage spaces for empty cars).

Laws are already being changed in some American states and parts of Europe to permit vehicles to travel “without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person”. These vehicles (cars, buses and trucks) will

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be widespread by 2030 or even 2025.

Today’s players (notably Google, Tesla, Mercedes, GM and Uber) are expecting the gradual introduction of the vehicles. For example, insurance companies may decide to penalize car owners who wish to drive their own vehicles, and so gradually car owners will opt for driverless vehicles.

Human-driven cars will not suddenly disappear; there will be some years notice of the new era emerging.

There will also need to be major infrastructure reforms: the creation of “driverless roads” and having vastly increased bandwidth for the sensors to operate. New infrastructure employment opportunities will therefore also be created.

Motor accidents in developed countries is one of the most common ways of dying. Driverless vehicles hold out the promise of much safer travelling. How will parents in the future explain to their children that they once had to risk their lives by driving cars?

The Wider Security Implications There is, therefore, much to be said about the driverless vehicle revolution. However we also need to go into this new era with an awareness of the security implications.

There is a tendency to plunge optimistically into new technology looking only at the presumed benefits without also thinking about some of the possible security risks.

Modern societies run on wheels. The risk of disruption cuts across all economic activities: travel to school and work, transportation of goods, marketing of vehicles, medical and legal work on traffic accidents.

Here are three issues worth monitoring. First, all discussions involving the Internet need to factor in the vulnerability of the spinal column so to speak. Danny Hillis is one of the Internet’s pioneers (he had one of the world’s first Internet addresses). In a 2013 TED talk The Internet Could Crash: We Need a Plan B he warned about the Internet’s vulnerability to disruption.

The Internet is now an “emergent system”. It is constantly changing and so no one person or organization now has a complete understanding of the entire system. A comparison could be could be made with the 2008 Global Financial Crisis: this was triggered by a disruption in a small part of a complex web (a sector of the US housing mortgage segment) which had a contagious impact on the entire system.

An obvious point of vulnerability with the Internet is the array of aerial communication satellites. An attack (say by North Korea) on a part of that system could disrupt much of that system. As with terrorism, the North Koreans could rely on the mass media to spread alarm.

Depending on the duration of the Internet crash, people could be stranded on motorways long distances away from help.

Second, it is impossible to predict extent of the impact on employment. Some new jobs will be created to cater for these vehicles. But a major incentive for innovation is the prospect of reducing labour (and therefore costs). There is bound to be increased unemployment as the years roll by.

In August 2016 Uber bought Otto a California start-up

specialising in self-driving cargo trucks. Two months later Uber’s first self-driving truck made its first delivery: 50,000 beers transported without problems across the state of Colorado. While driverless cars may get the publicity, the trucking industry is where major strides are also taking place.

A by-product of the decline in retail shopping centres, is an increase in parcel delivery because people buy online.

Driverless trucks increase the opportunity for “platooning”, whereby a series of trucks can drive at high speed close to each other, thereby reducing air pressure (and so gaining greater fuel efficiency). The vehicles communicate with each other on how each is travelling.

However, trucking is an important source of American employment. It is one of the best-paid sources of employment for people without university education. It is the most common occupation in 29 American states (out of 50). The drivers are at risk of losing their jobs.

Trucking is also a key part of an economic and social ecosystem. That ecosystem evolved from the Interstate Highway network created in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

That network replaced an older ecosystem of small towns and villages along such routes as those on the legendary Route 66 (which is now becoming a form of heritage trail).

Driverless trucks will not need roadside cafes and diners.

Long-term structural unemployment is one of a country’s gravest security threats. At the very least, there is an anger that can be mobilized by populist politicians. The German experience of the 1930s showed that such populism can result in extremist politics. Some unemployed people may turn to physical violence.

What could be the employment implications for industries based on coping with road accidents (ambulance, police, trial lawyers, insurance companies)? There is a lot more to driverless vehicles than just the disappearing drivers – many other occupations will also change (and possibly disappear).

Third, every new technological development brings new opportunities for crime. Car-jacking has already been identified as a risk. In July 2015 Fiat Chrysler Automobiles recalled 1.4 million US vehicles to install software after a report raised concerns about hacking. The authors of that report, IT researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, also showed that it was possible to car-jack a Jeep Cherokee by remotely taking control of the jeep’s IT systems.

Even before the onset of the driverless vehicles revolution, modern vehicles are already heavily ITdependent. Like all other forms of IT, these vehicle software systems can be hacked.

Looking to the future, will there be car-jacking of important people? Will they be kidnapped off the roads, or their vehicles deliberately crashed to kill them? Or explosiveladen driverless vehicles used for terrorist attacks?

To conclude, when I give talks on digital disruption (including the rise of driverless vehicles) and there are politicians in the room, the politicians tell me privately that they are worried about the issues I have raised. But they will not raise them in their own speeches because the voters are more concerned about short-term issues and the issues I deal with are years in the future. Thus, we remain an unprepared society unwilling to think about the unthinkable.

"...gradually car owners will opt for driverless vehicles.

Human-driven cars will not suddenly disappear; there will be

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Cyber Security DrasticNews.com SINGAPORE CYBER WEEK

Cyber data protection and security in Formula 1

T

he Singapore GP, which took place from 14th Sept to 17th Sept, on a floodlit street circuit against a backdrop of historic landmarks and glittering modern skyscrapers, is also famed for its off-track action. Memorable headline acts such as Bon Jovi, Lady GaGa, Shikira had entertained the Padang crowd in the past, and highlights this year included Ariana Grande, OneRepublic, and Seal. For four days, Singapore swung into party mood with motor and music fans descending on the island-city to join in the F1 excitement, visit the touristy attractions sample the local cuisines, and meet business contacts and network. The Singapore GP with its compelling television and photos is not possible without the extensive and complex preparations and logistics - construction and coordination to host and run a world-class race began months before, including the preparations to collect, protect, store and secure data.

“This sport is so rich in formation and data.” said Chase Carey, Formula One ® Chairman and CEO, the American who took over from long-time supremo Bernie Ecclestone 6 months ago.

When Singapore hosted the first night race in F1 history in 2008, Ecclestone hailed it as the “crown jewel” of the sport. Chase Carey,

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highlighting the uniqueness of the night race in Singapore, said the Singapore F1 is a “signature race” that “anchors” F1’s Asian strategy. In the world of F1, each Team hosts a treasure trove of data - or the “crown jewel” of confidential and sensitive data, ranging from car design to engine performance - assets critical to the accomplishment of the Team’s goals and need

to be secured and protected against breaches and intrusion.

Data analytics plays an extremely critical role in monitoring and optimizing the performance of Formula One ® cars. Today’s heavily instrumented F1 cars are equipped with hundreds of sensors on each car, capturing vital statistics such as tyre pressure, fuel

DrasticNews.com CyberWEEK Security SINGAPORE CYBER

Acronis who has had the pleasure of being the very first Singaporean company to have been featured as a sponsor on a Formula 1 car - the Scuderia Toro Rosso racing team. Photo Credit: Scuderia Toro Rosso

Grand Prix.

Day - 5 before Race Day Interview with Serguei Beloussov, Acronis CEO

Serguei Beloussov, CEO, Acronis, Russian-born Singapore businessman and innovation, on the essentials of backup, data protection and the partnership between Acronis technology and Scuderia Toro Rosso. Photo Credit: Acronis

burn efficiency, wind force, GPS location, engine and brake temperature. These are analysed real-time in a continuous feedback loop by the Team’s crew, track-side engineers and operations analysts on-site and back at headquarters - to monitor competition, car and track conditions, and to adjust race strategy.

Performing at the highest level of competition where a difference of a fraction of a second could either win or lose the Team a podium finish, the technological ability to measure and react on such metrics culled from the chassis, tyres, and throughout the engine to maximise the car’s performance, is crucial to the Team’s winning strategy.

The data also contributes crucially to simulations and modelling that are as sophisticated as Aerospace industry technology in predicting the car’s performance and

safety. Information such as car’s speed, stability, aerodynamics performance and tyre degradation are fed into test runs, to design a car that is capable of performing at its optimal best. And this search for perfection continues up to the day before the race.

The value of the gigabytes of data tracked, monitored, stored, analysed during practice runs and race day, and post-race day is unquestionably an important source of competitive advantage.

So, how do F1 Teams protect and secure the data against breaches and intrusions?

We followed Acronis who has had the pleasure of being the very first Singaporean company to have been featured as a sponsor on a Formula 1 car - the Scuderia Toro Rosso racing team, in the days leading up to the 2017 Formula One© Singapore Airlines Singapore

Founded in 2003 by Russian-born Singaporean Serguei Beloussov, Acronis specializes in backup, ransomware protection, disaster recovery and secure file sync and share solutions.

With offices in United States, Japan, Russia and Germany, it chooses Singapore for its Headquarter and R&D centre. In fact, Acronis is committed to investing half of its $10million budget in the area of Artificial Intelligence.

At the headquarters location at SunTec towers in Singapore, Serguei shared his love for the City State.

“Convenience, safety, productiveness” are what make Singapore an attractive place for top professionals to live in. Excellent schools, world-class health care, diverse food choices and a modern smooth functioning network of transport infrastructure add to its attraction.

With its solid reputation abroad, and stable politics, Singapore is also an attractive location for businesses.

Indeed, one can easily squeeze in a full gym workout, a few offsite meetings, errands running, answering emails in the office – all within a day – in Singapore.

“All these reduce the uncertainties, and makes it easier to forecast and plan ahead”, said Serguei. With a PhD in Physics, Serguei has a clear pragmatic but also at the same time a romantic approach to how well Singapore is transforming itself into a knowledge-based

DrasticNews.com | 45

Cyber Security DrasticNews.com SINGAPORE CYBER WEEK preparations were underway for inviting a renowned BlockChain expert to share his views on the promise of this technology, while champagne bottles and wine were being brought in for next day’s celebratory weekend to Acronis Racing Weekend agenda.

Day - 4 Before Race Day Acronis Racing Weekend 13th Sept – Virtual Reality, F1 Simulator, AI Robot

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Toro Rosso [left], is behind the wheel of the STR 12 for his third season in Formula 1.- Daniil Kvyat, Scuderia Toro Rosso [right], raced for Red Bull Raciging, where he stayed until the start of the 2016 European races, when he was moved back to Scuderia Toro Rosso. With Acronis Robot, who not only replied to questions about the solar system, also displayed an impressive a range of dance moves to music requests.

economy. The Smart Nation is an excellent initiative and it is an opportunity for Singapore to be more romantic – in addition to the par excellence in pragmatic planning - for talented professionals who desire more creative and productive work.

But, he emphasised, being hours in flight time from conflict-zones is not a reason for Singapore to be complacent. “This is especially more so given Singapore is a highly interconnected city, and Cyber Criminal can just as easily launch an attack from the tower next door, or from abroad”.

What can Singapore learn from Russia in the area of Cyber Security?

Serguei laughed, “we are taking about comparing one of the smallest countries with one of the largest countries. Even the late Mr Lee Kwan Yew was wise enough not to make the mistake of assuming what works in one country could work in another.”

After almost 20 years as a Singapore citizen, Serguei has ambitious plans to help build Cyber skills and capacity in the city state. “We work very closely with the leading Singapore’s universities and tech communities in joint projects, as well as growing its internship recruitment drive and giving Tech

46 | DrasticNews.com

Talks”, he explained.

At that point, the phone rang. A few moments in rapid-fire Russian punctuated with bursts of frustration at his banker’s authentication questions (Date of Birth and Home Address – which are publicly available), he hanged up and concluded that “Blockchain is an indispensable and important block of embedding security in our digital lives”.

A classic way to define security goals for an organisation is the “CIA” model. This refers to the components: confidentiality, integrity, availability, as well as access controls, and authenticity. And Blockchain is seen by many as the holy grail in efficiently solving the puzzle of meeting these goals.

Standard, repetitive and one-size-fits-all identity verification protocols that exist now (which he just went through with his banker) can be automated through the single-source of truth and tamper-proof protocols promised

by Blockchain. And this will further increase productivity and allow us humans to do more of the creative work. He added, “in F1 where there is so much data, BlockChain will also increase the trust in the integrity and authenticity of the data shared within the team”.

As I left the Headquarters, hectic

The event kicked off with Virtual Reality Demo, F1 Simulators, AI Robots, and a mouthwatering demonstration of Chinese Chicken Rice preparation by the Michelin Star Chef Chan Hon Meng. With the event off to an appetizing start, I discussed with Raffaele Boschetti, Head of IT Dept. of Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 Team, and Fabrizio Minuto, Deputy Head of IT, of Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 Team, Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz on Cyber Security in their day-to-day operations.

“Insider is a big issue”, said Raffaele. “This is especially so because there is a material turnover in the F1 industry.” This insider threat is seen through an example of cyber industrial espionage whereby a staff was leaving for a competing Team, deliberately copied statistical data with the intention to leverage off the analytics to the advantage of his new employer.

He was subsequently disciplined and barred for life from the industry, highlighting that managing the risk of data leakages is a priority not to be overlooked.

In this adrenaline-fueled, high-octance world of F1, momentarily data losses on race day itself – inadvertent or deliberate or Ransomware– or IP (intellectual property) data breaches on car design during the manufacturing phase, can mean the difference between “performing a good race versus not finishing one”, said Raffaele.

He emphasised the focus on performance and reliability in a mission-critical environment.

“F1 is a data driven business and Innovation related to data management is really important for the team’s success”, he added.

As in other industries, their Cyber security policies to protect the end-points and network that host the F1 team’s mission-critical data (the “crown jewels) against external intrusions and insider threats include cloud security, behavioural analytics, access controls, permitted media. Critically, encryption policies are high priority to protect the confidential car telemetry transmitted on-site to the headquarters, and to licenced partners.

At this opportune time, the Acronis Robot showcasing the latest innovation in Artificial Intelligence made its grand entrance, for a Q&A

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Spectacular fireworks at the end of the race. Photo Credit: Singapore Tourism Board.

session with Scuderia Toro Rosso drivers Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat.

Day - 3 and Day - 2 before Race day – Practice Day 1 and Practice Day 2 Data collection and crunching. And backups.

In 2014, race teams at the U.S. Grand Prix collected more than 243 terabytes of data according to AT&T, which is a few terabytes more data than there are in the Library of Congress.

"10 terrabytes of data float through the system, which makes it the biggest science project on the planet for that period of time, eclipsing even the human genome project," during the 90-minute race, said McLaren Applied Technologies CEO on an CNBC interview ahead of the Singapore GP race.

“200 Petabytes of data is collected across the teams last year, a mind-blowing 40% increase year-on-year. This is exponential growth,” said Chris Vlok, a New-Zealand F3 driver during a break in between watching the practice runs.

He elaborated: “The volume of data collected during the practice sessions is heavily scrutinized before the qualifying, to devise the racing strategy, but also to make calculated changes to the set up of the car, as well as outline any changes the driver should make”.

With the right metrics monitored, the engineers and the driver analysed the machine and human factor(s) behind the performance compared the other car(s) in their team (or to the same race of the previous year), to optimise the mechanical variables (such as fuel burn) or driver factors

(such as steering angle, brake pressure) to devise a strategy map and gain that hundredth of a second."

The anecdote shared by the STR team – the panic caused when a laptop hosting the critical data and the strategy map was dropped at an earlier F1 race this season, potentially losing the team its strategy map – shows how data-hungry the industry is, and consequently how important reliable backups are – the team was able to recover the data so rapidly that the driver’s knowledge of the loss came only after the race was concluded.

Day - 1 before Race Day – Qualifying Race Tech Talk on Ethereum Cryptocurrency, Blockchain.

Blockchain expert Alex Garkusha, co-founder of one of the world’s most successful ICO consulting firms - ModernToken – gave a fascinating presentation of challenges and opportunities presented by the Blockchain technology at the Acronis HQ. With experience in the “BlockChain of yesterday” (cryptocurrencies) and the “BlockChain of today” (smart contracts), Alex answered questions on a very topical theme - the peaks and troughs of Bitcoin, and initial currency offerings (ICOs). With the recent regulatory crackdowns on ICO, the most notable example being the Chinese government and the subsequent impacts on the value of Bitcoin holders, the oversubscribed audience asked: what are needed to establish the necessary trust and confidence in the ecosystems in ICO? What is the relationship

between ICO raised on the Ethereum platform and the impact on the value of Ethereum?

Eugene Aseev, at his RSA Asia 2017 talk (two months earlier in July) on “Changing Data Protection: Heading towards a BlockchainOperated Future”, illustrated the use of BlockChain in Data Notarization (in other words, the integrity or authenticity of data), through the use of Merkle Tree structures of the files’ fingerprints, anchored into the BlockChain with a timestamp. Aside from the challenge of building scalable industrial solutions that are capable of processing large volume of data, and balancing that with the low intrinsic rate of recording onto the BlockChain, there is also a need for Digital Notary Legislation to recognise that a signature secured through BlockChain technology is considered to be in an electronic form and to be an electronic signature. Recent legislations passed are encouraging, such as the Vermont Blockchain law – Act No. 157 (H.868): “Blockchain Technology (effective July 1, 2016) creates rebuttable statutory presumptions of authenticity for records using blockchain technology” Embedded as part of backup protocol, Blockchain will undoubtedly give users the confidence that the data has been verified and signed as authentic. And in the motorsport of F1 with the hundreds of terabytes transmitted, shared, analysed and stored over a racing weekend, the technology will increase the cost of deliberate data alteration by illegitimate actor seeking to profit from misleading the targeted racing team.

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Cyber Security DrasticNews.com SINGAPORE CYBER WEEK

F1 Simulators. Photo Credit: Acronis.

Singapore Airlines Formula© One Singapore GP - 17th September 2017 Rain fell on this race day and a dramatic crash at Turn 1 of the Marina Bay Street circuit saw the retirement three of the top four starters, including Ferrari duo Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

In a sport that involves machines travelling at hundreds of miles an hour, accidents do happen. And this is a data-rich sport: the car telemetry data, together with additional forms of data such as radio

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communication traffic, closed-circuit TV, weather data feed the team’s systems to display visuals and correlated metrics to understand what actually happened on track – and what could have been avoided. Not only is the data and the diagnostic process necessary for the teams that were involved in the incident, they also play an important evidential role in the stewards’ determination if an incident require further investigations or is considered a racing accident where no one driver is deemed to have committed an offence. (In this Singapore GP crash-out, the race stewards cleared all parties of any wrongdoing after an inquiry).

The crash data, particularly the visuals, also play an important part in improving the safety of the sport. In the Fernando Alonso's high-speed crash in the Australian Grand Prix last

year, recordings allow the team of experts to understand how forces on the body (head, neck, shoulders) is exerted in a high-G crash and how they interact with anything that is in the space of the driver (padding, belts), and what needs to be improved in the next generation of cockpit design.

With both Ferraris and Verstappen out of the race, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton stormed to victory to extend his lead in the world title race.

What’s next? The Scudeira Toro Rosso team now travels onto the Malaysia GP, armed with data and insights that would mean reviews and changes of car settings and driver’s techniques.

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