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Autonomous systems for military applications are not on pace for the proposed future fleet, but some of the more promising uses of autonomy are not being exploited

• Advances in autonomy have been steady, but the transition to systems capable of reacting to unexpected changes in the environment has not occurred and might not occur for several years.
• The military applications contemplated for unmanned vehicles are unlikely to be developed without substantial military investment and development.
• The limiting features associated with the most-complex missions are not necessarily associated with autonomy, and it might not be useful to accelerate autonomy while such issues are still being worked out.
• Under current kill chains and concepts of operation, autonomy is generally employed to replicate items in the kill chain exactly as they are carried out by manned systems.
• The alignment between the expected future fleet and possible future uses of autonomy is not close, and author analyses suggest that some features desired for the future fleet are unlikely to be reached under the known program of record.
• Policy issues related to autonomous systems applying rules of engagement do exist, and it is unlikely that these systems will be engineered in a way that avoids these issues. Slowing the decisionmaking of autonomous systems by interposing a human in the loop will likely cede a critical time advantage in a high-intensity environment. This delay is a choice and cannot be mitigated by technical improvements.
• Some of the more promising uses of autonomy might be in using simple systems with limited autonomy for most functions — but adding the capacity for the systems to coordinate with each other.