Future unmanned aircraft will have to be designed to fly over hostile areas where an enemy would actively challenge their presence, a panel of three U.S. Air Force officers said.
While today's unmanned aircraft, such as the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, fly over the uncontested skies of Iraq, Afghanistan or even Libya, tomorrow's wars may see a hostile power jam vulnerable data-links and global positioning system (GPS) signals while sending up fighters to force such planes out of their airspace, the men told an audience at a International Institute of Strategic Studies conference on April 20.
"We must continue to develop systems that are hardened against GPS-denied environments, hardened against comm-out environments, and partially hardened against aerial threats and ground threats," said Air Force Col. Dean Bushey, deputy director of the U.S. Army Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence.
Nor can the Air Force take the air bases it operates UAVs out of for granted, he added.
Such bases might come under attack from enemy forces, which would necessitate developing unmanned jets with greater range and persistence to enable such aircraft to operate from outside the range of those potential threats, said Mark Gunzinger, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
However, communications could be the deciding factor for future unmanned aircraft.
"Stealth technology is such today that we can make platforms that are much, much more survivable," he said. "But controlling them is going to be a significant problem."
In fact, it might be that for operations inside defended airspace, manned aircraft would be the preferred option until a solution is found, Gunzinger said.
One option is for an aircraft to be preprogrammed with a set route to attack a particular set of targets.
"But you'd be limited in your ability to deal with unplanned circumstances," Gunzinger said. Moving targets would be especially problematic because there would be no way to update the aircraft's target set en route.
Another alternative, Bushey suggested, might be to have the unmanned aircraft act as a "loyal wingman," where it would be led into combat by a manned aircraft.
Gunzinger agreed that the concept might be possible.
"That could be a feasible operational concept where one mother ship would control a number of unmanned platforms, not just for [Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance], but for a range of operations," he said.
Ideally, however, unmanned aircraft would be able to perform missions autonomously inside contested airspace.
Autonomy is necessary because an enemy would almost certainly attack the aircraft's vulnerable communications links, Gunzinger said. However, in any sort of threat environment, an unmanned aircraft would have to have the sensors to detect and avoid incoming threats, he added.
Bushey also emphasized a need for greater autonomy for unmanned aircraft.
However, autonomous aircraft that could independently perform such missions are not currently technologically feasible. Machines are not yet able to automatically recognize targets, nor are machines able to make decisions in a "dynamic" environment, such as air-to-air combat, said Col. James Sculerati, U.S. Special Operations Command's ISR chief. However, many routine tasks such as takeoffs and landings could be automated, Sculerati said.
To build a truly autonomous aircraft would require computing power approaching genuine artificial intelligence, Gunzinger said.
"I don't think we're at a point where we're willing to have systems autonomously engage another system, but we can get to a point where we can have a system get there and then have human control," Bushey added.
While today's unmanned aircraft, such as the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper, fly over the uncontested skies of Iraq, Afghanistan or even Libya, tomorrow's wars may see a hostile power jam vulnerable data-links and global positioning system (GPS) signals while sending up fighters to force such planes out of their airspace, the men told an audience at a International Institute of Strategic Studies conference on April 20.
"We must continue to develop systems that are hardened against GPS-denied environments, hardened against comm-out environments, and partially hardened against aerial threats and ground threats," said Air Force Col. Dean Bushey, deputy director of the U.S. Army Joint Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center of Excellence.
Nor can the Air Force take the air bases it operates UAVs out of for granted, he added.
Such bases might come under attack from enemy forces, which would necessitate developing unmanned jets with greater range and persistence to enable such aircraft to operate from outside the range of those potential threats, said Mark Gunzinger, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
However, communications could be the deciding factor for future unmanned aircraft.
"Stealth technology is such today that we can make platforms that are much, much more survivable," he said. "But controlling them is going to be a significant problem."
In fact, it might be that for operations inside defended airspace, manned aircraft would be the preferred option until a solution is found, Gunzinger said.
One option is for an aircraft to be preprogrammed with a set route to attack a particular set of targets.
"But you'd be limited in your ability to deal with unplanned circumstances," Gunzinger said. Moving targets would be especially problematic because there would be no way to update the aircraft's target set en route.
Another alternative, Bushey suggested, might be to have the unmanned aircraft act as a "loyal wingman," where it would be led into combat by a manned aircraft.
Gunzinger agreed that the concept might be possible.
"That could be a feasible operational concept where one mother ship would control a number of unmanned platforms, not just for [Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance], but for a range of operations," he said.
Ideally, however, unmanned aircraft would be able to perform missions autonomously inside contested airspace.
Autonomy is necessary because an enemy would almost certainly attack the aircraft's vulnerable communications links, Gunzinger said. However, in any sort of threat environment, an unmanned aircraft would have to have the sensors to detect and avoid incoming threats, he added.
Bushey also emphasized a need for greater autonomy for unmanned aircraft.
However, autonomous aircraft that could independently perform such missions are not currently technologically feasible. Machines are not yet able to automatically recognize targets, nor are machines able to make decisions in a "dynamic" environment, such as air-to-air combat, said Col. James Sculerati, U.S. Special Operations Command's ISR chief. However, many routine tasks such as takeoffs and landings could be automated, Sculerati said.
To build a truly autonomous aircraft would require computing power approaching genuine artificial intelligence, Gunzinger said.
"I don't think we're at a point where we're willing to have systems autonomously engage another system, but we can get to a point where we can have a system get there and then have human control," Bushey added.
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