Studies

The unmanned combat drone has crossed the threshold from a remotely piloted tool to a weapon that acts on its own. This study surveys the scientific state of the art across seven disciplines — inertial navigation, vision-based perception, terrain-referenced positioning, swarm radio, phased-array antenna technology, defense against satellite jamming, and embedded artificial intelligence — and projects from them the functionality that autonomous strike systems can be expected to reach by the year 2036.

At its center stands a guiding thesis that lends the study its name: the fail-safe kill chain. The combat drone of 2036 identifies its target with its own onboard sensors and its own artificial intelligence, without a data link. It networks with its peers over electronically steered directional beams that are hard to intercept and resistant to jamming. And should this nervous system fail, a tiered onboard navigation carries the mission to its end on its own — from the satellite signal through vision- and terrain-based positioning down to pure inertia, which no longer needs any external source.

The examination confirms the thesis but corrects its naive form. Pure inertial navigation drifts without halt; resilience arises not from a perfect sensor but from the way the methods catch one another, so that the drone is never reliant on a single source for long enough to matter. Across the few seconds of the terminal approach, even pure inertia suffices. The loss of swarm communication costs the collective sharpness, not the capacity to act — and therein lies both the military explosiveness and the legal problem.

The study also considers the adversary: against radio-silent, autonomous swarms, electronic jamming remains ineffective, so the defense falls back on high-power microwaves, high-energy lasers, kinetic interceptors, and programmable flak — means whose worth is decided by a merciless economics. It closes with the legal and ethical assessment: the fail-safe kill chain has been built; the open question is no longer whether it works, but who retains control over the decision of life and death.

The autonomous combat drone of 2036 is built so that the loss of its links does not stop it: it identifies its target on board, locates and destroys it on its own, and navigates without emitting a radio signal — rendering it largely immune to electronic jamming. A previous study measured this threat; the present one asks for the response: What defense is possible in 2036?

The central finding is this: there is no silver-bullet system. The only effective answer is a layered, networked defense built from four interlocking functions — see, decide, act, protect.

• See. Because radar loses small, slow, radio-silent targets in the clutter, only the fusion of many sensors (radar, electro-optical/infrared, acoustic, passive radio detection, LiDAR) can sustain the situational picture and early warning.
• Decide. AI-assisted planning automation solves the weapon-target assignment in real time under saturation, while the human stays above the loop and retains release authority.
• Act. A full effector program: high-power microwaves thin the swarm across an area (and work precisely because they do not jam the radio link but strike the circuits); high-energy lasers and programmable fragmentation clouds catch the leakage one target at a time; kinetic interceptors and net catchers engage even under total radio silence.
• Protect. A jam-resistant, EW-secure networked communications backbone holds the networked fire together, and a layered self-protection — microwave, laser, net, hardening — defends the command structures that direct the system.

The honest limits are named: no layer is leakproof (residual leakage is a design parameter), very large swarms strain magazine depth and energy, the use of microwaves within one's own airspace threatens one's own electronics (fratricide), and economics decide the matter — a "gold-plated" defense turns the cost asymmetry back against the defender.

The final chapter translates the system into an organization: the creation of a counter-drone battalion of the Swiss Armed Forces (commanded by a lieutenant colonel, subordinated to BODLUV Br 33, organized into staff functions S1–S6 and six batteries — from the sensor/early-warning battery, through the effector batteries for directed energy and counter-drones, to logistics). The official building blocks — Air2030 with Patriot and IRIS-T SLM, the Securiton emergency procurement against mini-drones, the Drone Task Force — are real and are clearly separated from the projection onto 2036.

The essence of both studies: the path from threat to defense is technically feasible, but it demands architecture instead of a wonder weapon, discipline instead of escalation — and the decision over life and death must remain with the human. Technology does not wait.