【Introduction】The AIR FORCE COMPETITION with AI as the core has begun? The loyal wingman developed by Boeing and Australia was officially named Ghost Bat a year after the first flight test, which also heralded the imminent entry of a group of AI pilots into the battlefield.
Musk has predicted that future air combat will be "autonomous drone warfare" rather than the war of traditional aircraft, and said that the era of traditional fighters has passed.
Three years ago, Boeing and the Australian government began collaborating on an "Air Power Formation System" to create a fleet of cost-effective, high-performance drones for military purposes.
These drones are also known as loyal wingmen. That is to say, drones can be formed with other fighters and act as manned fighter wingmen.
The core of loyal wingman is artificial intelligence technology, which flies autonomously according to preset procedures and has strong situational awareness ability when cooperating with manned aircraft pilots.
On March 21, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton held a formal naming ceremony at Royal Air Force Base Amberley, announcing that loyal wingman aircraft would be known as the MQ-28A Ghost Bat when it entered service with the Royal Australian Air Force, the first military aircraft to be designed and manufactured in Australia in more than 50 years.
The ghost bat is an indigenous Australian mammal known for its detection and hunting in swarms, and the name also reflects the unique characteristics of aircraft sensors and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
Loyal wingman
In air combat, the wingman, as the "right arm" of the long plane, is mainly responsible for observation, vigilance and cover, and closely coordinates with the long plane to complete the task together. Therefore, the tacit understanding between wingman pilots and long-aircraft pilots is particularly important.
However, with the advancement of science and technology, drones have gradually embarked on the stage of air combat.
As early as 2015, the U.S. Air Force proposed a concept based on "manned-aircraft/drone marshalling technology", that is, loyal wingman.
In March 2019, the XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in collaboration with Kretos Drone Company completed its first flight at the Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, marking the final introduction of loyal wingmanship from concept to reality.
Just days before the Valkyrie test flight was successful, on February 27, Boeing Australia unveiled for the first time a full-scale model called the Air Power Collaboration System (ATS) at the Avalon Air Show, a proof-of-concept aircraft built with Australia under the Advanced Development Program to provide key technologies for the production of Boeing ATS.
Boeing's Australian office is responsible for the development and production of loyal wingman machines, which the Australian government has invested about $25 million in, with more than 35 defense companies in four states participating in the project.
The model at the air show has a sci-fi color, with a fuselage length of about 11.7 meters. With a range of 3,700 kilometers, the aircraft is equipped with electronic warfare systems and various sensors to perform intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, combat and escort tasks. The nose is nearly 3 meters long and there is plenty of room to replace various combat equipment, including weapons and reconnaissance sensors.
Boeing wants to keep the cost of a single aircraft within $2 million, no more than the price of tomahawk cruise missiles. It can also act as a "shield" when necessary, sacrificing itself to protect more expensive manned warplanes from enemy missiles.
Prior to this, the development of loyal wingmanships was almost only done by the United States, and with the help of the ATS development program, Boeing successfully joined the USAfric unmanned wingman market, which was originally dominated by Kretos Defense.
Boeing wants dozens of cheap and expendable drones to fly and fight alongside expensive manned aircraft, such as fighter jets like the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet or the Lowmar F-35 Lightning II. This is also a new air force structure in the future, which can effectively increase the lethality of air combat.
In May 2020, Boeing showed photos of three prototypes and announced that mass production would be achieved in 2025.
In March 2021, the Boeing Loyal Wingman prototype successfully completed its first flight test at royal Australian Air Force base Woomera. Subsequently, the two sides signed a $115 million contract, and Boeing will provide the Australian Air Force with three more loyal wingmen, for a total of six. In November of the same year, the second prototype also completed test flights.
On 21 September 2021, Boeing Australia launched a new manufacturing facility for loyal wingman drones at Wellcamp Airport in Tewoomba, Queensland.
Although the United States as the first to develop loyal wingman, but the United States has always been conservative about loyal wingman, the former loyal wingman project was adjusted to skyborg project, in 2021 only selected Kratos and General Atomics to undertake further prototype verification work.
In December 2021, U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall revealed that they would purchase drones in the next fiscal year that could work with fifth-generation (active F-22 or F-35 fighter jets) and sixth-generation fighters; or build long-range strike systems with B-21 bombers.
In addition, the RAF Mosquito project and the "Future Air Combat System" (FCAS) project jointly promoted by France, Germany and Spain are all advancing the study of loyal wingmanships.
At present, China's loyal wingman information is not very much, and the J-20 dual-plane formation displayed at last year's Zhuhai Air Show proved the maneuverability and coordination capabilities of the J-20 aircraft.
And because the Attack-11 drone and the J-20 fighter are in the same exhibition area, some netizens speculate that the Attack-11 drone is China's loyal wingman. Its flying wing layout itself has a certain stealth ability, if the future and J-20 are combined, at least in this flight formation stealth will not be affected.
Last year, some netizens also took photos of the J-20 coming out for a stroll, next to a drone similar to the attack-11, which looked like it was conducting a companion flight test.
The other Phenom-97 is highly similar in appearance to the American XQ-58A Valkyrie, and also has superior stealth capabilities, and can also become a loyal wingman for the J-20 and The Falcon flying bomb modules.
AI changes air combat mode
There's a topic that military enthusiasts often argue about: Which is more valuable, pilots or fighters?
As mentioned earlier, one of the functions of loyal wingmen is to block bullets for pilots and manned fighters, so loyal wingman is basically a consumable. That is to say, the value of unmanned fighters is definitely much smaller than that of human fighters and pilots, or even much lower.
With the blessing of AI, AI pilots on drones can also new one at any time through the "Ctrl+C" method.
Because there is no problem of casualties in the loss of the drone, if only the loss of the drone can be used to gain a greater advantage at the strategic or tactical level, or even to achieve the mission objectives, then this loss is acceptable. If the cost of drones is properly controlled, it can even become a proven tactic.
The development of loyal wingman is inseparable from advanced and reliable artificial intelligence technology. The current design concept of loyal wingman at the software level is that by standardizing and opening up the human-machine interface and the machine interface, it can support the coordination of multiple types of unmanned aerial vehicles and manned fighter formations, without relying on a set of software or algorithms.
However, the current control of unmanned aerial vehicles should be composed of instructions and autonomous operations from manned fighters or ground stations, more as a support and supplement to manned aircraft, and artificial skills and technology are far from meeting the requirements of the battlefield.
What is the most important thing in training an AI model? Data, of course! It is difficult for a woman to cook without rice, there is no data, and even the best model has no effect.
Not only does it require a lot of training data, after the model is deployed, the more "features" entered, the better, if you can obtain data from other aircraft, then AI is equivalent to the ability to control the overall situation.
In 2020, the U.S. Air Force conducted the first formation flight data sharing test of the fourth/fifth generation of manned fighters and unmanned wingman, which is also a milestone event in the development of the loyalty wingman program, indicating that the future manned-unmanned formation flight combat method has taken another important step towards actual combat application. The U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor, F-35A Lightning II fighter, and U.S. Air Force Research Lab XQ-58A Valkyrie drones were the first to conduct formation flight tests at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, focusing on demonstrating data sharing/transmission capabilities between the Three aircraft.
Maybe the future of air combat is smarter than anyone's AI model.
Eliminate all the AI of the other side to win, without real human casualties, perhaps another kind of "peace"?
Resources:
https://gizmodo.com/boeings-newest-ai-combat-drone-gets-a-spooky-animal-nam-1848678798
https://www.sohu.com/a/298172823_115926
http://cannews.com.cn/2022/0225/339015.shtml
Source: Xinzhiyuan
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