Spending on Unmanned Systems is Ramping Up.

* Defense Department spending plans portend a rise in funding for robotic systems in the coming years, according to a recent report by the Bard College Center for the Study of the Drone.

President Donald Trump's fiscal year 2018 budget request contains $6.97 billion for procurement, research and development, and system-specific military construction for all robotics technologies, said the report, "Drones in the Defense Budget: Navigating the Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Request."

That amount would represent a five-year high, and is 21 percent greater than the enacted fiscal year 2017 funding level.

Procurement spending would increase by $584 million, to $3.34 billion. Research, development, test and evaluation funding would increase by $794 million, to $3.55 billion, according to the report that was authored by the center's co-director Dan Gettinger.

Spending on unmanned aerial systems would increase about 11 percent, while unmanned ground systems and unmanned maritime systems (surface and undersea) would see a 70 percent and 65 percent funding increase, respectively.

Growing modernization budgets for legacy unmanned aircraft and plans for future robotic systems are driving the increase, the report said.

R&D funding has comprised a large share of total spending on these technologies in recent years, it noted. In the 2018 request, it accounts for 51 percent of proposed investments in various robotic technologies.

The Pentagon's spending plan "lays the groundwork for programs that will develop new unmanned ground and maritime drones, as well as the next generation of unmanned aircraft," the report said...