Pakistani Drones

[Riaz Haq]

Drone is now a household word in Pakistan. It outrages many Pakistanis when used by Americans to hunt militants and launch missiles in FATA. At the same time, it inspires a young generation of students to study artificial intelligence at 60 engineering colleges and universities.... It has given rise to robotics competitions at engineering universities like National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and my alma mater NED Engineering University. Continuing reports of new civilian uses of drone technology are adding to the growing interest of Pakistanis in robotics.

Pakistani UAV Shahpar at IDS 2012 Show

Last week,  two indigenously built drones, named Burraq and Shahpar, were inducted into Pakistan Army and Air Force to deal with both internal and external threats. A press release by the military's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) announced that Pakistan had inducted its first fleet of “indigenously developed Strategic Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), namely Burraq and Shahpar UAV Systems” for the Army and the Air Force. While the press release provided no other information, an photograph released by ISPR showed a model of a canard pusher UAV that appeared to be armed with two under-wing missiles.

Photo Released by ISPR

Shahpar is a tactical UAV is capable of carrying 50 Kg payload and stay aloft for 8 hours. Burraq has the capacity for 100 Kg payload with 12 hours endurance, according to Defense News. Initially, both will serve as reconnaissance platforms to gather and transmit real-time operational  intelligence. In future, Burraq will likely be deployed as an armed UAV to carry and launch laser-guided missiles.

Here's an excerpt of Defense News report on Pakistani UAVs:

Burraq, based on CH-3 specs, would carry around a 100-kilogram payload and 12 hours endurance,” he (analyst Usman Shabbir of the Pakistan Military Consortium think tank) said.

The given payload of the (Chinese) CH-3 is a pair of AR-1 (laser-guided) missiles, or a pair of FT-5 small diameter bombs.

The ability of Pakistan to field an armed UAV has great benefits when faced with time-sensitive targets, he said.

“It is important in a sense that it greatly cuts the gap from detection to shoot,” he said.

Adding, “Earlier, once you detected something and wanted it taken out you had to pass on the imagery to higher ups, who had to approve and allocate resources like aircraft and by the time the aircraft got there the bad guys were long gone. Now detect, make decision, shoot and go home — all in same loop.”

He does not believe there is any real significance in the systems being named for use with both the Army and the Air Force, however, as “both have been operating their own UAV squadrons for a while now.”

“The Army has been using German EMT Luna X-2000 and the British [Meggitt] Banshee UAVs, while PAF as we know has a lot of faith in the Italian [Selex] Falco,” he added.

The Luna was also ordered by the Pakistan Navy in June 2012.


The new drones represent a significant advance in Pakistani military's counter-insurgency capacity and battle-readiness for any major conflict in the region.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Pakistani Army's Capabilities

India-Pakistan Military Balance

Pakistan's Defense Industry 

Pakistan Army at the Gates of Delhi 

Pakistan Launches UAV Production Line at Kamra

Pakistan's Military-Industrial Complex

Can Pakistani Military Defeat the Taliban?

Can Pakistan Learn From Sri Lanka to End Terror?

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an excerpt of Maureen Dowd's NY Times column on drones:

If you aren’t nervous enough reading about 3-D printers spitting out handguns or Google robots with Android phones, imagine the skies thick with crisscrossing tiny drones.

“I know this looks like science fiction. It’s not,” Jeff Bezos told Charlie Rose on “60 Minutes” Sunday, unveiling his octocopter drones.

The Amazon founder is optimistic that the fleet of miniature robot helicopters clutching plastic containers will be ready to follow GPS coordinates within a radius of 10 miles and zip around the country providing half-hour delivery of packages of up to 5 pounds — 86 percent of Amazon’s stock — just as soon as the F.A.A. approves.

“Wow!” Rose said, absorbing the wackiness of it all.

The futuristic Pony Express to deliver pony-print coats and other Amazon goodies will be “fun,” Bezos said, and won’t start until they have “all the systems you need to say, ‘Look, this thing can’t land on somebody’s head while they’re walking around their neighborhood.’ ”

So if they can’t land on my head, why do they make my head hurt? Maybe because they are redolent of President Obama’s unhealthy attachment to lethal drones, which are killing too many innocents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and our spy agencies’ unhealthy attachment to indiscriminate surveillance.

Or maybe they recall that eerie “Twilight Zone” episode where a Brobdingnagian Agnes Moorehead fends off tiny spaceships with a big wooden stirrer — even though these flying machines would be dropping off the housewares.

Or maybe it’s because after “60 Minutes,” “Homeland” featured a story line about a drone both faulty and morally agnostic. The White House chief of staff, wanting to cover up a bolloxed-up covert operation on the Iraq-Iran border, suggested directing the drone to finish off its own agent, Brody.

“I will not order a strike on our own men,” the acting C.I.A. chief, played by Mandy Patinkin, replied sternly. “Hang it up.”
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Journalists, police and paparazzi jumped on the drone trend. One photographer dispatched a drone over Tina Turner’s Lake Zurich estate to snap shots of her wedding last summer — before police ordered it grounded.

According to USA Today on Tuesday, all sorts of American businesses are eluding drone restrictions: real estate representatives are getting video of luxury properties; photographers are collecting footage of Hawaiian surfers; Western farmers are monitoring their land; Sonoma vintners are checking on how their grapes are faring. As Rem Rieder wryly noted in that paper, Bezos may eventually let his drones help with home delivery of The Washington Post, “but it’s bad news for kids on bikes.”

Law enforcement agencies are eager to get drones patrolling the beat. And The Wrap reported that in the upcoming Sony remake of “RoboCop,” Samuel L. Jackson’s character, a spokesman for a multinational conglomerate that has to manufacture a special RoboCop with a conscience for America (still traumatized by “The Terminator,” no doubt) scolds Americans for being “robophobic.”

Of course, for the robophopic, there is already a way to get goods almost immediately: Go to the store.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/opinion/dowd-mommy-the-drones-her...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's a Defense News report on launch of latest version of JF-17 fighter jet:

KAMRA, PAKISTAN — Pakistan on Wednesday launched production of a new version of a combat aircraft featuring upgraded avionics and weapons system.

The plane, to be called Block-II JF-17, will be manufactured at the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex west of Islamabad, which has so far produced 50 older-model Block-I JF-17s for the air force.

The complex on Wednesday formally handed over the 50th indigeneously produced Block-I JF-17 Thunder aircraft to the air force at a ceremony presided over by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The JF-17 Thunder has been co-developed and co-produced with the China National Aero-technology Import and Export Corporation.

“The indigenous manufacturing of JF-17s will not only lead to self-reliance and industrialization but will also further strengthen Pakistan’s friendship with China,” Sharif told the ceremony.

“The first Block-II JF-17 will be ready by June next year,” chief project director Air Vice Marshal Javaid Ahmad told AFP.

The Block-II will have improved versions of avionics sub-systems, air-to-air refueling capability, additional weapons carriage capability and some extra operational capabilities.

Ahmad said several countries in Central Asia, South America and Africa had shown interest in buying the new plane.

The Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, which overhauls and rebuilds the air force’s whole range of combat aircraft, has the capacity to roll out 16-25 aircraft per year.

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20131218/DEFREG03/312180023/Paki...

[Riaz Haq]

Here's an Atlantic mag piece on more lethal US robotic military:

In the future, an Army brigade might have 3,000 human troops instead of 4,000, but a lot more robots, according to recent remarks by General Robert Cone, the Army's head of Training and Doctrine Command.

"I’ve got clear guidance to think about what if you could robotically perform some of the tasks in terms of maneuverability, in terms of the future of the force," Defense News reported he said in a speech at the Army Aviation Symposium.

Continuing, he noted that the Army had devoted more resources to "force protection," keeping the troops safe, at the cost of some firepower. "I think we’ve also lost a lot in lethality," Cone said.

Robots could reduce the force protection burden, giving the Army more killing power per brigade.

Those robots could be a pack bot like the Legged Squad Support System perhaps, or a conventional-looking semi or fully autonomous vehicle like Lockheed Martin's Squad Mission Support System.

The lesson? If Google is doing it, DARPA is also doing it, but with more lethality.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/the-future-of...

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan TV channel using drone-mounted cameras to cover #AzadiMarchPTI , #InquilabMarch #islamabad http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1u2ypy_aerial-view-of-imran-khan-... …


Aerial View of Imran Khan Jalsa Shot with a... by PakistantvTV

[Riaz Haq]

The Guardian: Pakistan military's new combat drone is 'great national achievement'

In a significant breakthrough, the country’s army announced on Friday it had successfully test-fired a missile from an indigenously developed drone – a technical feat few nations have managed.

Army chief Raheel Sharif was among the engineers and scientists who witnessed the demonstration of a technology that has largely been the reserve of a few countries, such as the US and Israel.

The army said the drone, named Burraq after the flying horse of Islamic tradition, successfully hit stationary and moving targets with its Barq laser-guided missile with “impressive pinpoint accuracy”.

The system would be a “force multiplier in our anti-terror campaign”, said an army spokesman, Asim Bajwa.

Developing homemade drones has been a priority for Pakistan given the extensive use made of them since 2004 by the CIA to target terrorist groups in the restive north-west tribal belt.

The controversial weapons have proved irresistible given their ability to linger over their targets for extended periods of time, collect intelligence and deliver deadly missiles far more cheaply than conventional aircraft.

But the US supplies only its most trustworthy allies with the capability and has refused repeated requests from Pakistan, which has been attempting to join the club of countries with armed drones for at least two years.

Although it already has surveillance drones, arming them requires numerous technical problems to be overcome.

During the ongoing “Operation Zarb-e-Azb” operation against militants in North Waziristan, a major sanctuary for militant groups bordering Afghanistan, the country has made extensive use of bombs dropped from fighter planes.

The army has repeatedly claimed no civilians were killed in the extensive air campaign, but the claim has been impossible to verify.

US drone attacks have been decried by many Pakistanis and activists around the world who claim innocent lives have been lost and entire civilian populations traumatised by the continued presence of drones.

Islamabad makes diplomatic protests against US drone strikes as a matter of routine, although there is considerable evidence Pakistan has given its consent to the strikes.

Although the military recognise the US drone campaign have been effective many believe they are an unacceptable infringement on the country’s sovereignty.

According to the independent Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the CIA has carried out 413 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/13/pakistan-military-new-...

[Riaz Haq]

Attention White-Collar Workers: The Robots Are Coming For Your Jobs

From the self-checkout aisle of the grocery store to the sports section of the newspaper, robots and computer software are increasingly taking the place of humans in the workforce. Silicon Valley executive Martin Ford says that robots, once thought of as a threat to only manufacturing jobs, are poised to replace humans as teachers, journalists, lawyers and others in the service sector.

"There's already a hardware store [in California] that has a customer service robot that, for example, is capable of leading customers to the proper place on the shelves in order to find an item," Ford tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies.

In his new book, Rise of the Robots, Ford considers the social and economic disruption that is likely to result when educated workers can no longer find employment.

"As we look forward from this point, we need to keep in mind that this technology is going to continue to accelerate," Ford says. "So I think there's every reason to believe it's going to become the primary driver of inequality in the future, and things are likely to get even more extreme than they are now."

Interview Highlights

On robots in manufacturing

Any jobs that are truly repetitive or rote — doing the same thing again and again — in advanced economies like the United States or Germany, those jobs are long gone. They've already been replaced by robots years and years ago.

So what we've seen in manufacturing is that the jobs that are actually left for people to do tend to be the ones that require more flexibility or require visual perception and dexterity. Very often these jobs kind of fill in the gaps between machines. For example, feeding parts into the next part of the production process or very often they're at the end of the process — perhaps loading and unloading trucks and moving raw materials and finished products around, those types of things.

But what we're seeing now in robotics is that finally the machines are coming for those jobs as well, and this is being driven by advances in areas like visual perception. You now have got robots that can see in three-dimension and that's getting much better and also becoming much less expensive. So you're beginning to see machines that are starting to have the kind of perception and dexterity that begins to approach what human beings can do. A lot more jobs are becoming susceptible to this and that's something that's going to continue to accelerate, and more and more of those jobs are going to disappear and factories are just going to relentlessly approach full-automation where there really aren't going to be many people at all.

On the new generation of robot jobs

There's a company here in Silicon Valley called Industrial Perception which is focused specifically on loading and unloading boxes and moving boxes around. This is a job that up until recently would've been beyond the robots because it relies on visual perception often in varied environments where the lighting may not be perfect and so forth, and where the boxes may be stacked haphazardly instead of precisely and it has been very, very difficult for a robot to take that on. But they've actually built a robot that's very sophisticated and may eventually be able to move boxes about one per second and that would compare with about one per every six seconds for a particularly efficient person. So it's dramatically faster and, of course, a robot that moves boxes is never going to get tired. It's never going to get injured. It's never going to file a workers' compensation claim.

On a robot that's being built for use in the fast food industry

Essentially, it's a machine that produces very, very high quality hamburgers. It can produce about 350 to 400 per hour; t...

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/05/18/407648886/... 

[Riaz Haq]

MoU signed for robotics education in Pakistan

https://nation.com.pk/09-Jun-2018/mou-signed-for-robotics-education...

Time Dimensions Middle East & Africa (TDMEA) a leading UAE-based technology firm with exclusive regional rights to South Korean robotic education brand, RoboTami signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding with Association for Academic Quality (AFAQ) and Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) to promote and provide robotics and artificial intelligence education solutions from pre-primary to university level in Pakistan.

This was stated in a statement issued on Saturday.

The joint venture facilitated by IPS is aimed at providing the educational sector of Pakistan the curriculum, training, and labs to prepare the new and future generations of the country for the challenges posed by the fourth industrial revolution.

The unique element of RoboTami an indigenous model of the South Korean education system is the creative convergence of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM) as theory and robotics as practical.

RoboTami is a complete, one-stop solution for robotics education for schools, colleges, science and engineering universities and technical education institutes.

The MoU was signed at AFAQ’s head office in Lahore by Khaled Al-Aswadi, General Manager, TDMEA and Head RoboTami, Middle East, Africa & Pakistan, Shahid Warsi, CEO, AFAQ and Naufil Shahrukh, GM Operations,