Ethical concerns of unmanned and autonomous systems in engineering programs

Abstract

Unmanned systems are entering educational curricula (both K-12 and post-secondary) because they capture student interest, provide multidisciplinary engineering opportunities, and demonstrate many tangible science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts. In collegiate engineering programs, unmanned systems are used both within the curriculum (e.g. capstone design projects) and as part of co-curricular/extra-curricular activities (e.g. The Associate for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI)'s student design competitions). Graduate programs dedicated to unmanned systems engineering are beginning to emerge to provide specialized engineering skills to support an emerging industry. This paper seeks to investigate and report the various ethical issues that exist and must be considered with respect to engineering education involving unmanned and robotic systems. This paper provides an overview of a new graduate program in unmanned and autonomous systems engineering, and addresses three major ethical issues to be addressed for such a program. For the first issue, the paper discusses current ethical debates such as privacy, public safety, liability, lethal use, etc., which ought to be consider during curricular and research activities involving unmanned systems. The second issue discussed involves how the engineering of unmanned systems relates to current professional codes of ethics from a number of relevant professional engineering societies, and how they are addressed currently within the program's curriculum. Finally, the paper addresses concerns regarding how and with whom technical information regarding the design and operation of unmanned systems can be safely, responsibly, and legally disseminated within the curriculum and university sponsored programs. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2014.