Aviation Industry Missile Institute Wins "No Man's Land"

The road of scientific research includes the sea of stars with thousands of sails, and there are also unknown areas that are inaccessible. Every exploration, like an expedition in "no man's land", only by sparking the knowledge of "from 0 to 1" can there be a technological explosion of "from 1 to 100".

In July this year, at the second Air Force "Unmanned Scramble" Challenge, the "Thunderbolt Scramble" team of the Aviation Industry Missile Institute won the championship of the "Air Handshake" subject with systematic planning, stable algorithms and the scale of the cluster, and achieved an important breakthrough in the national competition in the field of unmanned equipment in China.

The "Unmanned Front" Challenge, hosted by the Air Force Armament Department, is the top event of the domestic intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle cluster system. At the end of 2019, "No One Fights" once again set up a recruitment and invited drone masters to "compete in the sword". In recent years, unmanned, collaborative, intelligent, cluster, these words have increasingly entered the field of vision of airborne weapons researchers, with the courage to open up a "new track" and challenge the "no man's land", 10 young people from the Missile Institute formed the "Thunderbolt Scramble" team and signed up to participate in the "No Man's Scramble" contest "Air Handshake" subject competition.

Strong practical combat is the prominent orientation of "no one contending". "Air handshake" simulates the UAV's aerial oil and aerial recovery. In the competition, each team will send 2 to 10 fully autonomous drones to complete the high-precision docking of the leading drones in turn. This not only has to identify the location of the leading drone, but also to overcome the interference of complex air flow to ensure that it can keep up, fly steadily, and be accurate, which is extremely difficult. In the last competition, the first, second and third places in this subject were vacant at the same time, becoming a veritable "no man's land".

Behind the iron wing is the "ladder" built by innovators. Within two months, the team conquered a number of key technologies, successfully completed the test flight demonstration in mid-May, and the comprehensive performance of the UAV, autonomous flight capabilities and formation flight capabilities were actually verified.

In order to cope with the possible strong winds, clutter, precipitation and complex lighting environment on the field, the team members iterated repeatedly, from one, two to five, ten... The tight drone formation in the sky condenses the wisdom and sweat of the team members, and also accumulates failures and lessons.

Affected by the epidemic, the preparation competition has changed from the original assault battle to a protracted battle, but everyone does not relax and slacken off, in the last two months, the weekend test flight, the late night test, the docking strategy is more mature, and the team cooperation is more tacit. Two years of sharpening the sword, and finally becoming a sharp edge. "Thunderbolt Battle" is not only a team name, but also a belief in victory.

In the middle of July this year, the competition finally started in Laishui, Hebei Province. In the pre-game test, the "Thunderbolt Scramble" team took the lead in opening up the information link among many strong hands, took the lead in completing the real flight test, and also improved the algorithm design according to the characteristics of the venue, which has taken the lead in technology.

However, near the official competition, a heavy rainstorm suddenly hit the Central Plains, sealing high-speed roads, suspending railway operations, and suspending flights. This means that except for the two players who stayed on the field before, the others have not been able to compete on time. In this way, Wang Chaolei, Liu Junming, and others formed the team with the smallest number of participants in the "no one to compete", but they had to ensure the largest unit formation in this subject. This team broke the barriers of cross-border and broke through the siege of heavy rain after the tempering of the epidemic. The road to the front in "No Man's Land" has just begun, and as long as there is a glimmer of hope, it is necessary to create unlimited possibilities.

On July 21, the preliminary round officially began, seven teams from the military industry, universities, private enterprises and other systems took turns to contribute, under the strict test, the "Thunderbolt Scramble" team and a university team advanced to the rematch. In the preliminaries, the opponents also showed a high level of skill. After analyzing the characteristics of the enemy and us, everyone decided to win in a stable manner to ensure that the software and hardware of the UAV were in the best condition.

As it turned out, the team's strategy was correct. Two days later, after the rematch, the light rain continued, after the drone lifted off, the rain suddenly increased, the dense raindrops soaked the waterproof layer, the ground equipment was short-circuited, and the drone group in the sky was lost to the ground. At the critical moment, the backup equipment prepared by the team came into play, quickly turning the situation around. After communicating with the organizers, after the rain turned less, the iron wing attacked again, and finally defeated the opponent with a stable play, becoming the only team in the final of the subject four.

Without a chance to rest, the final began on July 24. The players in Luoyang are also very powerful, and after all the hardships, they rushed to Laishui on the day of the final to witness the moment of "no one competing". If the preliminary round and the semi-finals are competition with opponents, the final is to surpass oneself. On the day of the final, the long plane was smoothly positioned, the formation was not bad every second, creating the best result of the successful 8 docking events, and winning the subject championship of "air handshake"!

At the closing ceremony on July 28, the "Thunderbolt Scramble" team, as the champion team, conducted a demonstration of real flight in the air, fully demonstrating the image and heritage of the aviation industry.

Fly drones and fill no man's land. From the preliminary round to the semi-final, from the semi-final to the final, the team members continue to summarize, the better the better, "0, 10, 29", this set of numbers is a portrayal of everyone's hard work all the way -

"0" is zero mistakes and zero losses throughout the whole process. The "10" is 10 unmanned aerial vehicles, which make up the largest crew formation in the subject.

The "29" was 29 flights, the largest number of flights completed.

Looking back on the preparation process, the team members faded their innocence, left a calm, and grew into pioneers of pre-research and innovation. In a year and a half, some team members encountered the death of their relatives, and it was too late to sort out their emotions, so they went out with their thoughts and flew thousands of miles and mountains. Some team members have parallel multi-line tasks, four places a week, time can be scrambled, space does not block enthusiasm, thousands of problems, excellence. The belief in the thunderbolt to fight for the front and win the championship on the field brings everyone together tightly.

This contest is just a small symbol on the way forward. In the arena of scientific and technological innovation, unmanned, collaborative, intelligent, cluster... In the future, more technical challenges are still waiting for the young people of the casting arrow to explore, to struggle, to verify, and to break through.

Chinese youth are cutting through thorns in the "no man's land" of innovation, opening up a broader world for scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement!