On September 28th, the grand opening of the 13th China International Aviation and Aerospace Expo, the Third Academy of Aerospace Science and Industry of China, together with the coastal defense system, the ground strike system, the unmanned combat system, the early warning and surveillance security system, commercial aerospace products, command communications and support equipment, made a concentrated appearance, and the scientific and technological content of the exhibits was the highest in the past.
With the continuous upgrading of weapons and equipment technology, the military use of unmanned aerial vehicles continues to expand, and the frequency of "appearances" of unmanned aerial vehicles in regional operations is also getting higher and higher, in terms of reducing casualties and improving attack efficiency, unmanned aerial vehicles have a unique advantage over manned aircraft. In recent years, the three institutes have taken the research of unmanned equipment system as an important part of supporting the construction of the world-class aviation technology research institute, and designed an unmanned combat system based on unmanned aerial platforms with flight characteristics and unmanned aerial vehicles as the core.
The unmanned combat system takes the enemy's high-value time-sensitive targets within the depth of reconnaissance and strike tactics as the main purpose, and takes the information-based coordinated combat network as the main feature, providing a rapid response closed fire ring from battlefield dynamic perception to accurate firepower strike and damage effect evaluation.
Concept map of unmanned combat system
The unmanned combat system includes a communication relay unit, a detection and combat integration unit, a reconnaissance and surveillance unit, an approach reconnaissance unit, a close-range strike unit, and supporting ground data terminals, ground control stations, etc. Unmanned equipment in the system can not only fight independently, but also provide real-time combat information support for other precision strike weapons, which can be used for coastal defense, border defense, counter-terrorism and local conflict information support and rapid strikes, and is also suitable for regional normal surveillance, reconnaissance, and information relay. In the continuous optimization and improvement, the unmanned combat system has been refined into three levels: ultra-high altitude, high altitude and low altitude.
Enhance the three-dimensional coverage of unmanned combat to reach the adjacent space
Adjacent space usually refers to a space of 20 to 100 kilometers from the ground, between the highest flight altitude of existing aircraft and the lowest orbital altitude of satellites, and has become an emerging competitive field for world powers due to its important potential application value. In the adjacent space field, solar unmanned aerial vehicles are also known as "quasi-satellites", it takes solar energy as energy, aims at flight time for several days, and even "week and month" level, unmanned aerial vehicles and communication satellites form a communication relay unit, providing network coverage far larger than the ground base station and "companion" network access services without regional restrictions, and providing interfaces and transmission links for data transmission services between people and aircraft and between machines in the region, providing interfaces and transmission links for various types of unmanned aerial vehicles in unmanned combat systems. The front and rear support a communication "umbrella" covering a wide area, so that the network will never go offline.
High-speed, stealth, reconnaissance, and strike are all available to create a high-end drone cluster
At the high-altitude level, the three courts will aim their power points at the airspace below an altitude of 20,000 meters, and the high-end unmanned aerial vehicles such as the "Sky Eagle" unmanned aerial vehicle and the WJ-700 "Falcon" unmanned aerial vehicle will be the most core of the unmanned combat system, the reconnaissance and surveillance unit, and the approaching reconnaissance unit, and the unmanned aerial vehicle formation can carry out reconnaissance surveillance, approach reconnaissance, and attack in the encounter under the command of the rear.
Flying wing layout, high stealth, high altitude high speed and other high-tech characteristics make the "Skyhawk" UAV into a high-altitude hovering flight, always searching for prey eagles, the maximum take-off weight of 3000kg, with extraordinary "vision", concealed approach reconnaissance, can allow commanders thousands of miles away to quickly focus and judge, find important targets hidden behind the enemy. As the leader of stealth flying wing layout UAVs, the "Skyhawk" UAV has shown great strength in infiltrating important targets or approaching the battlefield tactical reconnaissance in a high-threat battlefield environment after years of testing and improving.
With the main development of UAV operations in the future, it is inevitable to develop from low altitude to medium and high altitude, and elements such as height, speed, and rapid maneuverability are crucial to the battlefield vitality of the UAV system, and high-altitude, high-speed, long-haul multi-purpose UAVs have become an important development trend of unmanned combat in the future. The WJ-700 can be loaded with a wide range of high-precision reconnaissance equipment for cross-facing (sea/ground) reconnaissance, surveillance and early warning missions. As an all-rounder of the air battlefield, the WJ-700 can be expanded to 11 configurations, 9 combat forms, mount a variety of airborne weapons, simulate the implementation of long-range anti-ship, anti-radiation and anti-zone precision strikes and other combat tasks, or load electronic countermeasures equipment, perform electronic reconnaissance and interference tasks, and truly achieve one machine multi-type, one specialized multi-functional, one-machine multi-purpose. From its debut at the Zhuhai Airshow in November 2018 to its first flight in January 2021, it took just over two years and has basically completed its development.
Focus on combat effectiveness and open up the "last mile" of the UAV battlefield
Coming to the low-altitude close-range strike unit, the "SeaHawk" unmanned equipment represented by the HW-350 small long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle and the WJ-010 individual combat unmanned aerial vehicle system appeared with the posture of the all-rounder and the fatal one-hit performer for damage assessment.
HW-350 (Seahawk) small multi-purpose long-endurance UAV can complete the preparation from the box to take-off in just 2 hours, compared with other types of UAVs, the take-off and landing runway requirements are lower, in the navigable runway and even outdoor open roads can complete the take-off and landing. Its long endurance, high lift limit, large load, low cost characteristics, so that it can carry optical pods, communication equipment, navigation equipment, small synthetic aperture radar and other task loads, to perform target search, communication relay, fixed-point monitoring and other tasks, can quickly build a relatively broad local area network at low and medium altitudes, maintain front and rear contact. After hundreds of missions, today's HW-350 has been widely used in sea area monitoring, meteorological detection, test belt flight, emergency communications and rescue and other fields.
In the unmanned combat system, WJ-010 UAV is called "air grenade" because of its small and convenient, in order to facilitate the use of individual soldiers, the folded WJ-010 is only the size of a marching backpack, in the combat front, soldiers can easily replace different payloads to achieve strike and reconnaissance two types of functions, after finding the target, the UAV can carry out a dive "suicide" attack, to ensure that the single soldier combat once completed the reconnaissance and strike task, truly solve the battlefield to win the "last kilometer".
The system is simple, flexible to deploy, and the WJ-100 small multi-purpose UAV with fast response speed allows the enemy hidden in the depths to be hidden nowhere, with a wingspan of less than 5 meters, a length of only 2 meters, a cruising speed of 100-120 kilometers per hour, an increase limit of 3000 meters, and an extended endurance time of 5 hours, with a maximum load of 15 kilograms. Low maintenance and easy to operate, it extends its military applications to air reconnaissance, battlefield surveillance, border patrol, and target aircraft.