Autonomous Rules of Engagement Escalation in Human-Robot Teams | LAWS Workshop @ ICRA 2022

About the Video:
A future battlefield environment is likely to be characterized by great speed and precision with which hostilities are conducted. The full integration of autonomous capabilities on a large scale is essential to winning in such a battlefield environment. However, it raises legal and ethical concerns regarding the ability to properly discriminate legitimate targets from protected civilians and to reduce unintended engagements and collateral damage. This research aims to develop technological solutions to the legal and ethical issues that arise from the use of autonomous combat vehicles on the battlefield. It does so by presenting the case for autonomous rules of engagement as a technical guide to the programming of autonomous weapons systems while identifying technological challenges to be met.

About the Speaker:
COL Christopher Korpela is an Associate Professor and Director of the Robotics Research Center at the United States Military Academy at West Point. COL Korpela has deployed twice to Iraq and once to Afghanistan serving in various command and staff positions. As a researcher, he has coordinated research projects and grants across the U.S. Department of Defense, academia, and industry in the field of robotics, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence. He is an Apgar Award winner, West Point’s highest teaching award, and an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. COL Korpela has testified at the United Nations as part of the U.S. Delegation to the Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems in Geneva, Switzerland. He has authored and coauthored over 40 scientific and professional papers, including journal and conference papers, as well as book chapters in the field of autonomous systems and robotics. COL Korpela is a WISE (Washington Internship for Students of Engineering) Fellow and Senior Member of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). His first textbook titled Aerial Manipulation was released for print in September 2017.

Recorded at the Workshop on Addressing Ethical and Technical Challenges in the Development, Use and Governance of Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems during the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA).

Produced in partnership with the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (https://www.ieee-ras.org/).

Recording funded in part by a grant from the United Engineering Foundation (https://www.uefoundation.org/).