Speakers at the 23rd Robotic Warfare Conference on 28 November 2023 gave presentations on events within physical and cyber space that affect various military activities, technologies capable of influencing such activities, and advanced technical solutions and ongoing developments.

In addition to ARNL, which is coordinated by HUN-REN SZTAKI, the National Laboratory for Cooperative Technologies (KTNL) and the TKP-V project also participated in the conference. ARNL researchers, namely Dr. Péter Bauer, Dr. Antal Hiba, Mihály Nagy, Ernő Simonyi and Gergely Kuna gave presentation on the ‘Forerunner Drone and its Potential Defence Applications’, while the presentation entitled ‘Cooperative Air-to-Ground Mapping and Object-Based Change Detection’ was given by Barnabás Bugár-Mészáros, Péter Szabó, Sándor Soós Péter, Szabolcs Tóth and Dr. Bálint Vanek, also from ARNL.

It should be noted that at the start of the conference series, i.e., more than two decades ago, the themes popping up at the conference were much more sci-fi than they are today. Today, participants of the Robotic Warfare Conference are looking for possible answers – relying on robots and artificial intelligence – to very real military problems. The conference topics cover land, water, air, space or cyber warfare, as well as the use of the electromagnetic spectrum for military purposes.

The main objective of the event was to present the results achieved in the research area of "Artificial intelligence, alternative realities and radio frequency techniques for defence applications" within the framework of the Thematic Excellence Programme (TKP2021-NVA-16) at the Faculty of Military Sciences and Officer Training within the Ludovika University of Public Service, which is currently being implemented in the project "Applied military engineering, military and social sciences research in the field of national defence and national security at the Faculty of Military Science and Officer Training".

In addition to the presentations on the above-mentioned research topics, also other relevant presentations added to the prestige of the event. The latter presentations were given by researchers and staff from the collaborating and supporting organisations. During the conference breaks, an exhibition in the Portraits Gallery of the University gave visitors the opportunity to see the technologies, technical solutions and tools supporting the presented research, e.g., a fuel-cell multicopter, a rubber-wheeled robot platform and a PROTAR jet target.  

The presentations covered, among other topics, certain cyber and physical aspects of the Russian-Ukrainian war, various aspects of the defence applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous vehicle systems, drones, technical solutions for reconnaissance in the electromagnetic spectrum, the possibilities of measuring the effectiveness of VR combat simulator systems, the applicability of alternative reality technologies in integrated air traffic control systems, current trends in cybercrime, and the impact of COVID on critical military systems.

The event attracted greater interest than ever before, with a wide range of government and military organisations, as well as a number of Hungarian higher education institutions, research institutes and defence industry players being present.

Photos by Lt Col András Németh, Petra Németh, Dénes Szilágyi.