Tactic: Disturbance

Technique: Electro Magnetic Pulse

An EMP (electro magnetic pulse) can cause electrically-powered machines to shutdown or be (permanently) damaged. An EMP weapon can be used to send out (targeted) electro magnetic pulses. To this end, an autonomous robot could also be disabled or destroyed with such an EMP weapon.

Technique in practice

Paper: elector magnetic pulse Paper: EMP weapon mitigations

Mitigations

See the "EMP weapon mitigations" paper in the "technique in practice" chapter.

Detections

A simple health check service could detect whether the robot is still accessible.

Ethical Considerations

An EMP is a very invasive tactic when used and could have a lot of unwanted consequences. Especially when used in an urban setting, an EMP could disrupt a lot of other devices and as a consequence create dangerous situations for other people. This tactic should therefor only be used when absolutely necessary and when on is aware of all the damage that it could do in it's surroundings.

Documented incidents with autonomous robots

No incidents known at the time of writing.