Analysis on the innovation and development of power of unmanned combat platforms

With its low production, use and maintenance costs, simple operating conditions, and strong all-weather reconnaissance and strike capabilities, the unmanned combat platform has become an important support for the "surgical" strike tactics that rely heavily on continuous and real-time battlefield situation information for rapid killing. Countries around the world have vigorously developed unmanned combat equipment and developed a variety of combat usage modes.

With the success of the research and development of some relatively unmanned equipment, my country's unmanned combat technology has made great progress, but there is still a certain gap with advanced countries in terms of unmanned combat power. my country urgently needs to keep up with the development of world unmanned combat equipment technology, focus on strengthening research on technologies such as manned/unmanned cooperative combat, and make breakthroughs in the fields of relatively unmanned combat equipment and application technologies.

Chapter 1:Unmanned combat platformCurrent status andDevelopment prospects

As a stand-in for human combat and a new subject in the future battlefield, the development of unmanned combat systems in various fields such as land, sea, air, sky and trust is in full swing. This is inevitable for mankind to return to the history of primitive warriors, and has unlimited development and application space.

▇Typical combat mode of drone

1. Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR)

since20century60Since the age of time, drones have been widely used in military reconnaissance. Modern warfare is a full-dimensional war of land, sea, air, space, electricity and information, and it is highly dependent on intelligence and information.ISRWith its simple takeoff method, maneuverable takeoff location, advanced airborne day and night reconnaissance, surveillance equipment, ultra-low altitude flight, long-distance delay and zero casualties, drones can continuously reconnaissance on important enemy defense targets all weather and in the entire airspace, making up for the poor real-time intelligence acquisition of reconnaissance satellites, and become one of the largest number, more models and more frequently used drones in various countries.

2. Reconnaissance/strike integration

With the continuous evolution of the international anti-terrorism war style, new low collateral damage and rapid strike operations such as "decapitation operations" taken against enemy leaders have emerged, giving birth to reconnaissance based on real-time reconnaissance information to carry out rapid and effective killing./ Strike integrated drones. In order to cope with the increasingly complex anti-terrorism combat mission needs, the US Department of Defense plans to equip more drones with fast-guided, light-weight weapons systems to support larger-scale combat missions.

3. Human-manned/drone collaboration

With the continuous increase in the degree of autonomous drone equipment, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries have proposed to adopt people./UAVs form a hybrid formation to improve combat efficiency and coordination capabilities. This combat mode combines the advantages of manned aircraft and drones, and can achieve the conversion between the two horizontal and horizontal combinations of manned mode and unmanned mode, which can effectively improve the battlefield survivability of manned aircraft.

4. Swarm Attack

With the rapid development of drones and artificial intelligence technologies, the use of multi-drone track planning technology to achieve coordinated operations of multiple drones, that is, the research on the "swarm attack" model has been carried out in large quantities at home and abroad. When the drone formation is5-10When the frame is formed, the response time and firepower resource allocation of destroyer defense systems will not be enough to intercept all drones. If the number of drones increases further, the number of drones that break through the destroyer defense systems will increase significantly. The simulation results show that using a large number of low-cost drone "swarm" combat can significantly improve combat effectiveness.

▇Advantages of unmanned combat platforms

Compared with the manned combat system, unmanned combat platforms have the characteristics of strong continuous operation capabilities, low cost and difficult to be captured by radar and other detection methods. In particular, they do not require humans to drive and do not sacrifice the lives of soldiers. In future wars, they will be an indispensable new combat force with unlimited development and application space.

1. There is no risk of casualties or captives, which is an effective way to reduce casualties of combatants to a relatively low level.

2. When designing an unmanned combat platform, there is no need to consider human factors and related equipment. The design of the platform is all task-centric.

3. The cost is low, and the cost of the whole life is greatly reduced, saving many systems and equipment related to people. The structure is simple, small and light, which will inevitably lead to low costs.

4. Good stealth, coupled with "unmanned" can make the unmanned combat platform closer to the enemy target area to carry out attacks. At this time, the cost of sensors and weapons installed on the platform can also be reduced accordingly.

▇Overview of unmanned combat platforms abroad

Unmanned combat aircraft are a new concept weapon proposed in the past two years based on the rapid development and significant results of remote-controlled aircraft (especially unmanned reconnaissance aircraft) over the past decades. In February 1996, the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Committee published a research report on "Outlook for the New Century - Aerospace Forces in the 21st Century", claiming that "in the near future, unmanned combat aircraft will likely become the dominant force in air combat in the 21st century", and "Unmanned combat aircraft are far more effective than manned combat aircraft in many aspects of missions." Therefore, it is recommended that "the fighter fleet US Air Force should engage in the design and research on the design of unmanned combat aircraft."

Foreign military experts generally believe that the basic technologies for the development of unmanned combat aircraft (such as fuselage, engined unmanned tanks, avionics and sensors) are already in place, and some key technologies are expected to be conquered soon. Therefore, the newly designed advanced unmanned combat aircraft will be realized in the early 2007-2010 and later in 2020, while simple unmanned combat aircraft converted from active fighter jets (such as F-16 or F/A-18) can be put into combat use within 2-3 years after the start of the plan.

If this is true, the emergence of unmanned combat aircraft will be a major milestone in the history of aviation development. Unmanned submersibles are known as the Navy's power multiplier and have a wide range of and important military uses. It can be used as a means of self-defense and attack by submarines; it can also be used as a counter-mine tool to draw a minefield map in depth to guide existing ships to pass through the minefield safely; or provide patrol protection for existing minefields; its mine hunting tool combined with explosives is an effective means of extermination of lightning.

▇Unmanned combat platformDevelopment and application trends

1. Entering the unmanned era in multiple directions and all fields.Anything that a person can do is an unmanned combat platform, or even something that a person cannot do, an unmanned combat platform can do. Not only aircraft, but also spacecraft, navigator, submersible vehicles, land combat vehicles and even cars in people's daily lives will enter the era of unmanned, and unmanned combat systems will become an emerging combat force to develop rapidly. In particular, the integration of unmanned combat platforms and new generation networks will have a significant impact on the mode of combat.

2. The unmanned and human compatibility mode appears.As a transition period from the current era of manned driving to the era of unmanned driving in the true sense, the development of combat platforms will lead to a considerable era of human-unman compatibility. That is to say, the operator can drive manually when going up, and the operator can drive automatically when coming down, that is, it can "driv in a remote manner" platform, and people and no one can easily convert each other.

3. Miniaturized and portable.A large number of low-cost, foldable, modular and serialized small and micro unmanned combat platforms have emerged, making the field combat application of unmanned combat platforms normalized and individualized. The command information system will reserve an interface for the unmanned combat platform so that the unmanned combat platform can easily and quickly access the combat system anytime and anywhere, upload and download data, or receive targets, routes, attitudes and attack commands.

4. Anthropomorphic and intelligent.Unmanned systems can increasingly replace the functions of human systems, and their intelligence levels are getting more and more. Some are even better than human systems. Later, unmanned combat platforms and humanized combat platforms are integrated to support, complement each other, and unite each other. While unmanned systems become independent combat forces, they are also a force multiplier for human systems.

5. Extra-long, full environment.Perform full-spectrum operations in full-spectrum weather, full-spectrum electromagnetic, full-spectrum geographical environments for days, months, or even years, and can adapt to various complex environments, dangerous environments and mission environments. This is the "weakness" of the human system.

▇Unmanned combat platformTechnical impact

Foreign proposals to develop unmanned combat platforms have clear demand backgrounds, that is, considering that the environment of the battlefields of local wars in the future (including air combat, land combat and naval combat) is very serious, how to achieve greater results with smaller losses (including casualties) is a priority concern to the military combat departments of various countries. In addition, countries face the dilemma of increasingly tight budgets and rising equipment costs when developing new weapons and equipment. How to seek economically affordable speed-based weapons and equipment has also become a priority for all countries. Unmanned combat platforms are a cost-effective way to adapt to the above needs. Because of this, it has become a natural thing for foreign countries to start researching unmanned combat platforms from now on.

As mentioned earlier, the unmanned combat platform is a force multiplier and has great military value. The unmanned combat platform will have a profound and even revolutionary impact on future military operations. For example, the franchise of unmanned combat aircraft will likely change the force structure, organizational composition, regulations, combat principles, tactical ideas, combat methods and national defense procurement of future air combat; the use of unmanned submersibles will likely change the style of future underwater combat; and unmanned combat vehicles will likely change the nature of future land warfare. Some people even imagine that the assault troops in future ground warfare will likely be a remote-controlled unmanned combat vehicles and robots, and the troops composed of combatants will follow.

（Stay tuned for the second chapter:Application of unmanned combat platforms in the trinity of sea, land and air）