by Leslie Wolfe
"So the drone doesn't fire on its own?"
They both chuckled lightly, looking at each other for a split second.
"No, ma'am, it's always a human operator who decides when the weapons are launched."
"Then tell me please, what do you think went wrong that day?"
Neither responded for a few seconds, looking at each other.
"The thing is, ma'am, we don't know," Cohen said. I was bringing the drone in for landing, after a mission with the Coast Guard over the Gulf of Mexico waters. The drone needed course adjustment; it had the wrong vector for the approach.
Alex blinked when she heard the word "wrong."
"Oh, nothing was wrong at that point, ma'am," Cohen clarified. "The vector was wrong for the approach—the runway is at this angle, and the drone is approaching at this angle," he said, making wide gestures with his arms. "Happens on every landing. All pilots have to correct approach vectors, so they are perfectly aligned with the runway."
"I see. OK, let's continue."
"The drone's vector was 30, our runway is 350, so that required me to change course by making the drone turn. Again, nothing out of the ordinary."
"30? 350?" Alex asked.
"Degrees. Heading. It's the angle between the drone's direction of movement and true north. Or the runway's angle with true north. The drone needed to change its heading from the 30, coming from the gulf, to 350, and align with the runway for final approach."
"Got it, thank you."
"So, I was starting to turn," Cohen continued. "Nothing was out of the ordinary at that point. But then the drone, despite my control, stopped turning and resumed flying straight. I remember saying, 'What the hell?'"
"He did, I remember him saying it too, 'cause that's how I knew something was wrong, and I turned to see what was happening," Jennings added.
"Then," Cohen continued, "I started trying to see if movement in the joystick correlated with any change in the UAV's direction. I was testing the joystick's responsiveness, and I wasn't getting any for a while. For a few seconds, the joystick completely failed to control the drone."
"Then what happened?" Alex asked.
"The weirdest thing. As I was playing with the joystick to see if I could get any response from the drone, well, I suddenly got it. A response, that is. The drone resumed obeying the joystick control, and I had to compensate in a hurry to bring it to the needed heading."
"Why the urgency?"
"When the drone resumed its connection with the joystick, I was in the middle of testing the joystick by pushing it to the extremes of all possible motions, so I was abruptly transmitting extreme course changes. If I hadn't instantly corrected the course after I noticed it had become responsive again, I would've crashed the UAV in the Gulf, within seconds. In retrospect, I wish I had."
"That means you were able to restore the drone's responsiveness to the ground controls?"
"For a few seconds, yes," Cohen answered.
"That's where it gets weird," Jennings said.
"After a few seconds of responsiveness, in which I was, again, applying the course corrections to bring the drone in for final approach, the UAV lost it again and resumed a zero bank angle flight."
"Zero bank angle?"
"It's when an aircraft is not turning, the wings are level, it's not tilted, just flies straight," Jennings explained.
"You're saying the drone lost connection with ground control a second time?" Alex asked. This was getting interesting.
"Yes, that's what I mean," Cohen continued. "For a few seconds, it was responsive; then again, it wasn't anymore. Then it was responsive again, and then we lost it one more time. It was coming in and out of connection with ground control or something like that. At that point, Jennings was running for help, trying to find our commanding officer, and I was desperately trying to get the drone under control. By the time anyone came, and after a series of under control—out of control—episodes, we saw on the screens that it was heading for the mainland, under the wrong heading, and flying too low. The drone was, at that time, completely unresponsive to any of the ground controls. Seconds later, it was all over," Cohen said, dropping his voice to a whisper.
"You see, ma'am," Jennings said, "we took apart the control panel in the room, trying to figure out what went wrong. The technicians said that the ground control panel was working correctly, and that something went wrong either with the drone's navigation controls or with the comlink between ground control and the UAV. Both of us are beating ourselves up over what happened. Did we screw anything up? I seriously doubt it. We weren't even playing with self-guidance that day."
Cohen gave Jennings an angry flash of his eyes, for just a fraction of a second, then resumed looking straight down.
"Do you normally play with the self-guidance feature?"
"This UAV came equipped with self-guidance software, but it's for testing purposes only. It wasn't cleared for deployment, as you well know. It is, if you will, like a trial version, reduced in functionality and designed to help us, the drone pilots, to figure out if it does what it should do, and what other functionality we'd like to have built in. It's more of a research tool. We sometimes play with it, but not that day, and never in populated areas."
"You're positive this drone was not self-guiding?" Alex asked.
"Yes, I am," Jennings answered.
"Yes, we are," Cohen answered, at the same time. "You have to physically turn on self-guidance to make it work. No one flipped that switch that day. Like Jennings said, the self-guidance feature is under development, it's not complete yet, and shouldn't be used outside of a test environment."
"But you said something about playing with it?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am," Jennings said, trying to fix it. "That was a slip of the tongue, more than anything else. We rarely test the self-guidance, and, when we do, the drones are out at sea, or over desert areas with no target in sight."
"All right, I get it. Tell me about ordnance. What was that UAV armed with when it hit the bus?"
"Nothing, ma'am," Cohen said. "It was a surveillance drone, not a combat one. The surveillance UAVs are equipped with video cameras and all kinds of imaging and monitoring technology. This particular one was helping the Coast Guard patrol our territorial waters."
"The explosion would have been far worse, if any type of missile had been involved," Jennings confirmed.
"Then what caused such a big explosion if the drone was unarmed?"
"Fuel, ma'am," Cohen said. "The UAV's tanks were more than half full."
...67
...Tuesday, July 13, 10:12AM
...NanoLance HQ—Information Technology Floor
...San Diego, California
This time, Alex was late for her own staff meeting. She hated when people had to wait for her. She considered lateness a rude gesture. When she finally stepped through the conference room door, her team had been waiting for a while and was engaged in the casual chatter that occurs in such cases.
"Good morning, everyone, sorry I'm late," Alex said. She had no hesitation apologizing to her direct reports for being late, or for any mistake she made. The theory saying that apologizing is a sign of weakness didn't go well with her nature.
"Welcome back," Louie said, "I hope you're feeling better."
"Y-yes, I am," she replied, almost taken by surprise. In the whirlwind of the previous day's events, she had nearly forgotten she called in sick on Monday morning, claiming a bad case of food poisoning.
"Back where I'm from, especially on a Monday, food poisoning means something else," Louie said, to the amusement of the rest.
"Like what?" Alex asked.
"Like a serious hangover." Laughter erupted around the table.
"I promise you I was not hung over," Alex said, unable to contain a smile. "OK, back on track here. This week we're going to work with R&D in assessing the self-guiding software. There are complaints about the software, specifically about its unreliable performance. In last week's operat
ions meeting with Walker, Peter Wilson mentioned software failures in all models. Who can take a look at that and let me know what's going on?"
Alan's face changed expressions from his usual degree of worry to a deeply concerned frown.
"This isn't the first time this has happened, you know," he said. "We've seen it before, last year, when we deployed the first version. There were so many bugs to fix that we didn't even try. We pulled back and went straight to the drawing board, designed what we have today. Today's version didn't go through formal QA, or a bug-fix period of testing and redeployment. There's plenty of work to do there."
"I'll work with you on that," Louie offered.
"Hey, I'll take all the help I can get," Alan said gratefully.
"I could help too," Bob said. "Everything else I have can wait or be delegated."
"Heard you're going to the plant today," Lisa said, with her usual charming smile.
"You are?" Bob asked.
"Yes, I am leaving right after this meeting."
"It's an interesting tour; you'll love it," Lisa continued. "I wish I could get out there more often. You learn more about the product from a visit to the plant than you learn from a month of theoretical dissertations."
"Well, if you're going there today," Bob said, "maybe you can help me with something."
"Shoot."
"I have this small, bomb-dismantling robot that needs to be tested. It needs to get there. You would save me a trip."
"Sure, no problem, I'll take it. Is it big and heavy?"
"No, just a few pounds, kinda looks like a toy. The Air Force wants to assess the feasibility of having these robots dropped from low flying UAVs. Folks at the plant are going to fit the little bugger with a parachute of sorts and start dropping it for testing. I'll walk you to your car, so you won't break a fingernail."
"Ah," Alex gave an amused sigh of pretend irritation. "OK, let's go."
"I'll tag along," Louie said, "got a question for you."
The robot wasn't large. It had a mechanical arm with a gripping claw, extending toward its front, much like an excavator. This robot's claw had a complicated design, involving multiple degrees of freedom, which allowed it to reach various locations and under different angles, to grab, detonate, or project a detonating laser beam from a safe distance.
"Where do you want this?" Bob asked.
She opened the rear car door on the passenger side.
"Put it down on the floor, between the seats. It won't budge from there. If we put it in the trunk, it will bounce around the whole way."
"Wanted to ask you," Louie said, "in the analysis of the self-guidance software, anything specific we should be looking for? Did Wilson mention anything in particular?"
"If I recall exactly, he said they fail in orientation, navigation, and targeting."
"Targeting? Or target acquisition?" Louie asked. "Targeting is in a different software module than target acquisition."
"Acquisition, yes, you're right. He said the drones get lost, exceed their patrol perimeter, and fail to pick up targets based on preloaded imagery. Fact is, I'd like to be able to have some kind of response for the operations team before the next meeting, which is in a week or so."
"All right, we'll all get on it then, full priority."
"Where should I put this?" Bob asked, holding a small device in his hand.
"What's this?" Alex asked.
"It's the remote for the bomb-dismantling robot."
"It works with a remote?" Alex asked.
"Oh, yeah," Bob said, thrilled at the opportunity to demonstrate. "You open it like this. It opens like one of those full keyboard cell phones. On this screen, you'll see what it sees with its cameras. You can select front view, side-left, side-right, rear, and above," he continued, demonstrating the robot's views. The views were showing incredibly detailed images of the interior of her car.
"Someone needs to vacuum under her seats," Louie said cheerfully.
"Ah, shut up," Alex fired right back at him.
"Here," Bob continued, unabated, "you have the arm controls. A small joystick, embedded in the remote, would snap up and become operational when in place. See?"
She nodded with interest.
"This is how you control the arm," Bob was demonstrating all the possible movements of the arm. "Combining the joystick with these four controls, you can get it to move sideways but also on the vertical axis, like this, or grip its claw, like this. You can lock the grip, like this," he continued, showing more combinations of controls.
"Ah, this is fun," Alex said. "I know I'm never gonna need to know this, but this is really fun. I could play with it for an hour or two."
"And this is how you move the unit itself, not just the arm." Bob said, taking the robot from the car and setting it down on the asphalt, showing her how it would turn, advance, reverse, and spin in place. "If the surface is good and allows it, this robot can do fifteen miles per hour."
"Quite versatile," Louie said.
"Oh, yeah, it is, and it's not from the disposable generation anymore, you know," Bob said. He was passionate about all things to do with robots and artificial intelligence in general. His kind eyes filled with sparks as he walked his audience through feature after feature.
"How do you mean, disposable?" Alex asked. "These things must cost a fortune."
"Yes, they do," Bob continued, "that's precisely why now they're equipped to detonate a bomb from a safe distance, by activating this laser, here," he pointed first at the robot's laser source, and then at the laser activation command button on the remote. "Before they had lasers the robots ended up destroyed while detonating bombs they couldn't dismantle, because of their close proximity. They had to detonate the bomb mechanically, which required the little guys to be right there, near the bomb, and get blown to bits in the process. If dismantling fails and the remote operator decides detonation is the best course of action, this laser technology allows the operator to detonate remotely."
"OK, you guys, thanks for the crash course in bomb-dismantling robot operations, but I gotta go. I am going to be seriously late for my plant visit. I'll take that," Alex said, reaching for the remote. She took it, flipped it closed, and put it in her inside jacket pocket. Minutes later, she was speeding toward the NanoLance plant.
Somewhere in the dense traffic, a few cars behind her, a gray Ford sedan was catching up.
...68
...Tuesday, July 13, 11:00AM
...Money Markets Review Newscast
...Nationally Syndicated
"Another challenging week for NanoLance Incorporated has started with an unfavorable consumer review report, issued yesterday by our colleagues from Ted's Consumer Central. The findings are putting NanoLance's global quality under a big question mark, signaling notable drops in product quality in the consumer branch of the business. These findings have generated yet another knee-jerk reaction from shareholders, who have dumped relatively high volumes of shares at declining prices. NNLC gave 6.24 percent on NASDAQ today, bringing the stock price at an unprecedented $75.78 per share. Probably the decline will continue, if the negative media attention doesn't fade and the company's reputation is not restored.
"From Money Markets Morning Review, this is Vincent Moran, wishing you a fortunate day."
...69
...Tuesday, July 13, 11:43AM
...NanoLance Assembly Plant
...Alpine, California
"Umm . . . late, as usual," Alex grunted, looking at the time while she was parking in one of the plant's visitor parking spots. She should have been there by 11:30AM, no later.
In the lobby, John Dunwood, vice president of manufacturing, was waiting for her, casually chatting with the receptionist.
"I'm so sorry I'm late," Alex said, as soon as she stepped through the door.
"No problem, I just arrived," Dunwood replied, shaking her hand. "We are scheduled for a quick introduction about plant operations, then the tour, per se, and then we'll have a picnic."
>
"A picnic? Here?" She was surprised. This was not the usual business lunch invitation.
"Yes, exactly. You haven't seen the plant until you've seen our testing airfield and our drones flying. What better place to have lunch? Don't worry," he continued, looking at her stilettos, "we have pavement and picnic tables. We eat out there a lot."
He led her to his office, a modestly decorated, functional room.
"It's rare that we have an IT leader visit. This almost never happens. Or happened, I should say. I've seen the memo that Dr. Barnaby put out regarding the plant tours for all newly hired leaders, and I think it's a great idea. Even if it takes a little bit of time from our days, the value in having all new leaders exposed to the products, both military and civilian, is priceless. Coffee? Water?"
"No, thank you, I'm good."
"Let's proceed, then. The plant is organized into three main sections. There's one section dedicated to building and assembling the electronic components that we install in all products, such as circuit boards, command modules, and so on. That's a static-free, dust-free environment, and we have two options to visit it. We can either see it through the glass walls, or, if you'd like to see more detail, we'll have to dress you up in anti-static work wear."
"Through the glass walls would do it, I think," Alex said.
"A second section of the plant manufactures the bodies of all the UAVs. Few components that participate in the full assembly of a UAV are built elsewhere. We're vertically integrated almost to perfection, and this helps greatly with quality control." He frowned. "I am sure you remember quality hasn't been our greatest achievement lately."
Alex nodded, sympathetically.
"Most drone bodies are made of composite materials. There's no foundry here," he clarified with a smile. "There are numerous advantages to composites. They're lightweight, non-corrosive, high-strength, re-enforceable, and flexible. Therefore, all UAV body components are shaped here, on site, from carefully designed formulations of composite materials and reinforcing fibers. We buy the wheels and tires from a parts vendor, you know. But mostly everything else is built here."