introduction
In his report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping stressed the need to accelerate the development of unmanned intelligent combat forces. Throughout the practice of local warfare in recent years, the unmanned combat force represented by UAVs has become an important part of the joint combat force system, playing an increasingly prominent role as an efficiency multiplier, especially with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology and its extensive application in the military field, the degree of intelligence of unmanned systems has been continuously improved, the autonomous capability has been continuously enhanced, and unmanned intelligent combat has shown different advantages and efficiency than before.
Increased flexibility for more effective raids
The general unmanned system has the innate advantage of carrying out surprise attacks due to its small target characteristics and stealth design, but due to relying on program control or command control mode, the adaptability is poor, and it can only attack fixed or slow targets with relatively favorable environmental conditions. The intelligent unmanned system can not rely on rear control, and can carry out autonomous reconnaissance, identification, decision-making and action in a more complex battlefield environment according to the pre-granted combat authority, and its flexibility is constantly increasing, and it can carry out surprise operations within a wider range of tasks.
Enables agile attacks. On the informationized battlefield, the enemy's key high-value targets usually have the characteristics of sudden appearance and random time and space, and the strike against them is limited by a strict time window, and the strike time is fleeting, but once the strike is successful, it will produce better combat results and obtain higher combat benefits. The intelligent unmanned system has strong autonomy and high autonomous decision-making power, which solves the delay problem of rear command control in transmission time and platform response, and can use the advantage of long endurance to carry out sustained reconnaissance and monitoring of important mission areas in the form of regional mobile patrol, and can quickly and accurately attack when the target is found, effectively grasping the fighter. In January 2020, the US military's assassination of Suleimani, the supreme commander of Iran's "Quds Force", was supported by other intelligence information, using the MQ-9 "Reaper" reconnaissance and combat integrated drone with certain intelligence, to enter the skies over Baghdad in advance and successfully detect and strike at the target.
Infiltration attacks can be achieved. Entering the enemy's deep core area to carry out sabotage attacks on important targets has always been risky and has a low success rate. With the improvement of the intelligence level of small and micro unmanned systems, it can be spread to the depth of the enemy through air drop or artillery fire, and then automatically compare data through its own power flight or ground maneuver, autonomously approach the predetermined target or directly attach to the key parts of the large weapon system, and even penetrate into the enemy's combat decision-making, command system and other internal core places to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance, timely use the high explosives it carries to destroy the key and node parts of the target, or cast high-energy poisons to kill and injure key and core personnel. The implementation of "endoscopic reconnaissance" and "minimally invasive strikes" can destroy the enemy's combat system, disrupt the enemy's combat plan, disrupt the rhythm of enemy action, and form a strong psychological shock. In November 2017, a highly intelligent miniature autonomous attack robot called "Killer Bee" displayed at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Conference was less than the size of the palm of an ordinary person, equipped with wide-angle cameras, tactical sensors, etc., containing 3 grams of explosives, which can be used in clusters, and can fly into the room through a very small pores for accurate identification and attack.
Synergy is enhanced, and group operations can be implemented more effectively
Due to the limitation of the level of intelligence, the general unmanned system and the coordination between the unmanned system and the manned system, mainly in accordance with the pre-planning in time and space cooperation, in the event of a change in the situation, it is necessary to coordinate through the rear control station of the unmanned system, timeliness, poor accuracy, difficult to adapt to the rapidly changing informationized battlefield, and the intelligent unmanned system can automatically maintain formation maneuver and combat formation and automatically avoid threats according to the initial state, termination state and process constraints set by the mission. And perform combat missions in coordination on the optimal path and way.
Can perform cluster operations. The improvement of the intelligent autonomy level of unmanned systems is the material condition for the joint marshalling and cluster operation of multiple unmanned systems, and is an important basis for effectively exerting the effectiveness of unmanned combat. In the unmanned intelligent cluster, each combat platform can take the combat target as the center according to different combat objectives and mission requirements, exchange information with each other, dynamically and autonomously combine, and carry out mobile assault and overall defense in a coordinated manner through interconnection and interoperability. During offensive operations, it can carry out continuous or simultaneous attacks on predetermined targets from multiple directions in a highly coordinated manner, so that the enemy is overwhelmed and defenseless, causing the paralysis of its combat system or the destruction of key parts in a short period of time, and soft killing actions such as decoy, jamming, and electronic attacks and fire hard destruction operations can be automatically coordinated and coordinated at the best time, which can avoid conflicts in mutual influence and target selection, effectively support firepower operations, and improve overall combat efficiency. In defensive operations, an intelligent adaptive defense system can be established, forming an automatic response protection "bubble" at the periphery of its own combat unit or target that needs protection, building a three-dimensional and multi-level interception network, dynamically implementing peripheral vigilance, interception and flexible response strikes on threatening targets, and protecting the safety of important targets at sea or on the ground.
Able to carry out manned/unmanned coordinated operations. Mixing manned combat forces and unmanned systems into integrated combat is an important combat mode formed with the development of unmanned intelligent combat forces, which can maximize the complementary and synergistic advantages of the two and improve the overall combat capability. During operations, according to the conditions of combat tasks, confrontation intensity and battlefield environment, multiple manned combat platforms and unmanned combat platforms rely on advanced information and intelligent technology to dynamically match forces and flexibly group, and under the planning and control of manned combat forces responsible for formation command, intelligent unmanned systems are configured forward, which can quickly grasp the battlefield situation and expand the range of early warning and detection; It can also accurately indicate and guide firepower, extend the strike arm of the manned combat platform, and give play to its long-range combat effectiveness; It can also carry out advanced operations, so that the enemy discovers and attacks first, and creates fighters and favorable conditions for manned operations. At the same time, it can keep manned combat forces outside the range of enemy threats, thereby reducing the possibility of enemy attacks and improving battlefield survivability. The evaluation of the effectiveness of foreign helicopter/unmanned reconnaissance aircraft coordinated operations shows that the time to perform tactical reconnaissance missions has been shortened by an average of 10%, the amount of data for identifying targets has increased by 15%, the survivability of airborne personnel has increased by 25%, and the lethality of weapon systems has increased by more than 50%.
Controllability is enhanced, and command efficiency can be improved more effectively
The intelligence of unmanned intelligent combat forces is the intelligence of the unmanned system as a whole, which is not only manifested in the autonomous ability of the unmanned combat platform, but also in the planning and control. Whether it is the operator of the rear control station or the commander of the manned/unmanned coordinated combat formation, the intelligent control system can assist it to complete mission planning and combat control quickly and efficiently, greatly improving command efficiency.
This is manifested in the generalization of platform control. The control unit of the unmanned system is the "brain" of the entire unmanned system, and it is also the command node of the unmanned combat force to carry out the mission, responsible for the pre-planning, delivery/recovery, information processing, command issuance and coordination with other combat forces during the operation of the unmanned combat platform. Intelligent control system, with open architecture and strong interoperability, while greatly reducing the workload of operators, has realized the transformation from "one control one" to "one control many", that is, a control unit can simultaneously control a number of unmanned combat platforms or unmanned clusters of different spaces and different task types, and can also interact with any of several different communication networks to achieve information sharing and combat coordination with other combat units. In addition, the autonomous control capability of the intelligent unmanned combat platform is enhanced, which can self-correct minor errors or deviations in command signals, and also promotes efficient command and control of unmanned intelligent combat forces. The "general control of shipborne unmanned systems" plan proposed and carried out by foreign militaries is to achieve unified control of various types of shipborne unmanned aerial vehicles and surface/underwater unmanned systems, so as to effectively coordinate the actions of maritime combat forces.
It is manifested in the speed of human-computer interaction. Efficient human-computer interaction is the key to achieving effective control of unmanned combat platforms. The intelligent control system can not only autonomously complete the work of situation awareness, combat decision-making, mission planning, etc., but also comprehensively present the corresponding results in a simple and intuitive form, so that the operator can understand well and confirm it with simple and direct operation. In particular, the human-computer interaction interface in the intelligent control system can receive and accurately understand the intentions expressed by the accuser through non-contact interaction methods based on physiological characteristics such as voice, gestures, expressions, and EEG, and quickly convert them into mission instructions that can be recognized by the unmanned combat platform, and distribute or issue them on demand, improving the interaction efficiency and command and control efficiency. For example, the foreign military's "UAV Control Best Role Allocation Management Control System" project consists of intelligent UAV autonomous behavior software and advanced user interface, the system interface is optimized for multiple UAV control, equipped with a glass cockpit with touch screen interaction function and an auxiliary target recognition system, so that one helicopter air mission commander can effectively control 3 UAVs at the same time, without increasing the workload, improving situational awareness and mission effectiveness.
The unique advantages of unmanned intelligent combat have improved the battlefield adaptability of unmanned intelligent combat forces, enabling them to more effectively carry out combat missions with other combat forces in a complex environment with high dynamics and strong confrontation. Especially with the realization of "strong artificial intelligence" in the future, unmanned systems will have a subversive impact on the rules of war and combat methods after having better deep learning capabilities and higher autonomous decision-making capabilities. (Zhao Xiangang, Su Yanqin)
Source: PLA Daily