Unmanned vehicles go to war

A two-day conference in May 1998 on unmanned vehicles gave a remarkable picture of the range of uses - and particularly for military purposes - to which robot vehicles are being put. Reconnaissance aircraft were by far the most strongly represented, although there was a US Navy paper looking at the future of "uninhabited combat air vehicles" (keeping a man in the control loop). There were also presentations on underwater vehicles, target vehicles and sensors. This report summarizes two aerial and two underwater applications.