At present, judging from the reform and development of the establishment system in major countries in the world, the military is developing towards a lean, small, efficient, intelligent, and integrated “man-machine (robot-drone)” direction, seeking to coordinate and fight together with robot soldiers, drones and human soldiers. According to statistics, the armies of more than 60 countries in the world are currently equipped with military robots, with more than 150 types. It is estimated that by 2040, half of the members of the world’s military powers may be robots. In addition to the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Japan, Israel, Turkey, Iran and other countries that have successively launched their own robot warriors, other countries have also invested in the research and development of unmanned weapons.
The world’s military powers will set off a wave of forming unmanned combat forces to compete. The so-called unmanned combat forces are a general term for combat robots or battlefield killing robot systems. With the development of various types of information-based, precise, and data-based weapons and equipment, intelligent platforms have become the driving force for pre-designed battlefields, combat robots have become the main force on the battlefield, and the combination of man and machine has become the key to defeating the enemy. In the future, battlefield space forces will highlight the three-dimensional unmanned development trend of land, sea, and air.
USA Today once published an article titled “New Robots Take War to the Next Level: Unmanned Warfare,” which described unmanned warfare like this: drone fleets swarm in, using sophisticated instruments for detection, reconnaissance, and counter-reconnaissance; after locking onto a target, they calmly launch missiles; automatically programmed unmanned submarines perform a variety of tasks including underwater search, reconnaissance, and mine clearance; on the ground battlefield, robots are responsible for the delivery of ammunition, medical supplies, and food… In future wars, these may become a reality.
On land, various robots that can perform specific tasks are highly integrated mobile strike platforms with mechanization, informatization, and intelligence. For example, unmanned tanks are unmanned tracked armored platforms that are mainly controlled by their own programs. They can be remotely controlled by soldiers, and are dominated by long-range attack intelligent weapons and informationized weapons. They can automatically load ammunition and launch autonomously, and carry out long-range indirect precision strikes, effectively reducing the casualties of soldiers. In the ocean, various unmanned submarines, unmanned warships, etc. can sail thousands of miles and perform various maritime combat missions without the need for onboard personnel to operate. In the air, the human-controlled drone system deployed in actual combat is a drone system platform with its own reconnaissance and judgment, human control, integrated reconnaissance and attack, autonomous attack, and human-machine collaboration.
The use of drone weapons in wars highlights their combat capabilities, which will inevitably lead the armies of countries around the world to form unmanned combat units in full swing. In the Iraq War, the United States began to test the actual combat capabilities of unmanned combat vehicles. In March 2013, the United States released a new version of the “Robotics Technology Roadmap: From the Internet to Robots”, which elaborated on the development roadmap of robots, including military robots, and decided to invest huge military research funds in the development of military robots, so that the proportion of unmanned combat equipment of the US military will increase to 30% of the total number of weapons. It is planned that one-third of ground combat operations in the future will be undertaken by military robots. It is reported that the US military deployed the first future robot combat brigade (including at least 151 robot warriors) before 2015. In 2016, the US military conducted another experimental simulation test of the “modular unmanned combat vehicle” in a multinational joint military exercise. In 2020, the US Pentagon issued a contract with a price tag of 11 million US dollars to form a “combined arms squad” with the ability to cooperate with humans and robots, and plans to complete the construction of 15 future combat brigades by 2030. All squad members have human-like vision, hearing, touch and smell, can send information and attack targets in a timely manner, and can even undertake tasks such as self-repair and vehicle maintenance, transportation, minesweeping, reconnaissance, and patrolling. The US Daily Science website reported that the US Army has developed a new technology that can quickly teach robots to complete new crossing actions with minimal human intervention. The report said that the technology can enable mobile robot platforms to navigate autonomously in combat environments, while allowing robots to complete combat operations that humans expect them to perform under certain circumstances. Currently, US Army scientists hope to cultivate muscle cells and tissues for robots for biological hybridization rather than directly extracting them from living organisms. Therefore, this combination of muscle and robot reminds me of the half-cyborg Grace in the movie “Terminator: Dark Fate”.
On April 21, 2018, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) special forces launched a raid against extremist terrorists in Derbent, Dagestan, and for the first time publicly dispatched armed unmanned combat vehicles equipped with machine guns as pioneers. During the 2018 Russian Red Square military parade, the United States discovered a large number of Russian “Uranus-9” robots and other combat systems that had exchanged fire with Syrian anti-government forces in southern Syria, and showed their appearance characteristics to the audience. In August 2015, the Russian army used combat robot combat companies to carry out position assaults on the Syrian battlefield. The tracked robots charged, attacked, attracted the militants to open fire, and guided the self-propelled artillery group to destroy the exposed fire points one by one. In the end, the robot combat company took down the high ground that is now difficult for Russian soldiers to capture in one fell swoop in just 20 minutes, achieving a record of zero casualties and killing 77 enemies.
According to the British Daily Star website, after the British Army conducted a large-scale combat robot test at an event called “Autonomous Warrior 2018”, it unified drones, unmanned vehicles and combat personnel into a world-class army for decades to come. Future British Army autonomous military equipment, whether tanks, robots or drones, may have legs instead of tracks or wheels. In early 2021, after the UK held the “Future Maritime Air Force Acceleration Day” event, it continued to develop a “plug-and-play” maritime autonomous platform development system, which, after being connected to the Royal Navy’s ships, can simplify the acquisition and use of automation and unmanned operation technologies.
In addition to the development of robots by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, other powerful countries have also successively launched their own robot warriors. It is expected that in the next 20 years, the world will usher in robots on land, sea, and air to replace soldiers to perform high-risk tasks. The future battlefield will inevitably be unmanned or man-machine integrated joint combat operations. The world’s military powers will launch a human-machine (drone) integrated combat experiment
The style of air combat is always evolving with the advancement of aviation technology. Since 1917, with the successful development of the world’s first unmanned remote-controlled aircraft by the United Kingdom, the family of unmanned equipment has continued to grow and develop, and various drones are increasingly active in the arena of modern warfare.
Since the 21st century, with the large number of drones being used on the battlefield, the combat style has been constantly updated. In the Gulf War, drones were limited to reconnaissance, surveillance and target guidance, but in the Afghanistan War, Iraq War and the War on Terrorism, the combat capabilities of drones have become increasingly prominent, and the combat style and methods have shown new characteristics, allowing countries around the world to see drones as a sharp sword in the air, thus opening the prelude to the integrated combat test of man-machine (drone).
It is reported that the total number of drones in NATO countries increased by 1.7 times between 1993 and 2005, reaching 110,000 by 2006. The United States, other NATO countries, Israel, and South Africa all attach great importance to the development and production of unmanned reconnaissance aircraft and multi-purpose drones.
In 2019, more than 30 countries in the world have developed more than 50 types of drones, and more than 50 countries are equipped with drones. The main types are: “password” drones, multi-function drones, artificial intelligence drones, long-term airborne drones, anti-missile drones, early warning drones, stealth drones, micro drones, air combat drones, mapping drones, and aerial photography drones. The main recovery methods: automatic landing, parachute recovery, aerial recovery, and arresting recovery.
On September 14, 2019, after Saudi Aramco’s “world’s largest oil processing facility” and oil field were attacked, the Yemeni Houthi armed forces claimed “responsibility for the incident” and claimed that they used 10 drones to attack the above facilities. On January 3, 2020, Qassem Soleimani, commander of the “Quds Force” under the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was “targeted and eliminated” in a drone raid launched by the United States at Baghdad International Airport in the early morning of the Iraqi capital. At the end of 2020, in the battle between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh (Nagorno-Karabakh region), it was obvious that drones played an important role in the conflict between the two sides. In particular, many military experts were shocked by the videos that the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense kept releasing of the TB-2 “Flagship” and Israeli “Harop” suicide drones just purchased from Turkey attacking Armenian armored vehicles, artillery, cars and even infantry positions and S-300 air defense missiles. In December 2020, local conflicts in the Middle East and Transcaucasus showed that drones are playing an increasingly important role. Based on this, some military experts even predicted that the 21st century will be the “golden age” for the development of drones. Drones are bound to completely replace manned aircraft and become the “battlefield protagonist” of the 21st century.
Currently, the US Air Force plans to expand the teaming of manned and unmanned platforms between drones and manned aircraft, and by 2025, 90% of fighters will be drones. In other words, larger aircraft (F-35 fighters or F-22 fighters) can control a nearby drone fleet. For example, the F-35 fighter is like a flying sensor computer, which can obtain a large amount of data, and communicate, analyze and judge on its own, and finally upload the conclusion to the pilot’s helmet display. The pilot analyzes and processes the information obtained, formulates a combat plan based on the combat plan, battlefield situation, and weapons equipped by the formation, and then issues it to the drone… to achieve the purpose of manned aircraft commanding drones to cooperate in combat. In other words, the mixed formation of manned and unmanned aircraft will change the previous ground control to air control of drones, and the pilot will directly command the combat operations of drones. The US military envisions a modular design so that soldiers can assemble drones after taking out the parts of drones from their backpacks when needed in future battlefield operations, and can also use 3D printing drones. In August 2020, the U.S. Air Force defeated top F-16 fighter pilots in a simulated air battle with AI, which also proved that AI pilots can “think” creatively and quickly, and it may not be long before they surpass the skills of human pilots. The U.S. Navy’s new MQ-25 “Stingray” carrier-based unmanned tanker will be tested in 2021 and have initial operational capability in 2024, which will help expand the combat radius of aircraft carriers.
Since 2013, Russia has been equipped with a large number of drones, of which unmanned reconnaissance aircraft alone exceeded 2,000 by the end of 2019, most of which are light drones, such as the Kalashnikov drones that participated in the military operations in Syria. In the next step, each brigade or division-level unit of the Russian Army will have a drone company, and the airborne troops will also be equipped with a large number of drones. The Russian Northern Fleet will have a drone regiment, and some modern Russian warships will also be equipped with drones. In addition, from 2021, the “Orion” reconnaissance and strike drone developed by the Kronstadt Group will be equipped with the Russian army. This heavy drone can carry a variety of guided ammunition to perform combat missions. In addition, the Russian army is also testing two heavy drones, the “Altair” and the C-70 “Hunter”. These are enough to show that Russia has made significant progress in the field of drone research and development.
Israel is a true pioneer in the field of drones. The drones it develops are not only advanced, but also exported to other countries. It has equipped its troops with hundreds of drones, including the “Bird’s Eye” series of single-soldier drones, the “Firefly” drone, the light “Skylark-I” drone, the light “Hero” drone, the medium “Skylark-II/III” drone, the “Heron” drone, etc. In the mid-1980s, Israel had developed a land-based launch and patrol drone named “Harpy” or “Harpy”. The Harpy is a “suicide drone” capable of autonomous anti-radar attacks. It weighs 135 kg, can carry 32 kg of high explosives, and has a range of 500 km. Due to confidentiality reasons, the specific number and type of drones equipped by the Israel Defense Forces are not yet known. In order to deal with threatening targets such as enemy ground-to-ground missiles, Israel Aircraft Industries is developing a high-altitude, long-flight stealth unmanned fighter. The aircraft combines stealth technology with long-range air-to-air missiles, can carry Moab missiles, penetrate into the rear of the enemy’s battle zone, and intercept and attack ground-to-ground missiles in the boost phase.
On February 5, 2013, the British army stationed in Afghanistan used a micro unmanned helicopter for the first time to carry out front-line work of spying on military intelligence. This unmanned helicopter is equipped with a micro camera, which can transmit the captured images to a handheld control terminal in real time; it can fly around corners and avoid obstacles to identify potential dangers. Next, the UK plans to enable one manned aircraft to command five unmanned aircraft at the same time. According to a report on the website of the British “Times” on January 26, 2021, the British Ministry of Defense invested 30 million pounds to develop the first unmanned aerial vehicle force in Northern Ireland. According to reports, the contract for the design and manufacture of the prototype has been given to the American “Spirit” Aerospace Systems. The company has a branch in Belfast, and the contract is expected to provide 100 jobs. The British Ministry of Defense plans to start manufacturing the first prototype of this new type of unmanned aerial vehicle by 2025. It will be equipped with missiles, reconnaissance and electronic warfare technology equipment, becoming the British Army’s first unmanned aerial vehicle capable of targeting and shooting down enemy aircraft and avoiding surface-to-air missile attacks. Its partner manned fighters will be able to focus on missions such as electronic warfare, reconnaissance and bombing, thereby reducing costs and the high risks faced by British aircrews.
The French Navy will form its first carrier-based drone squadron at a base near Toulon, the 36F carrier-based aircraft squadron of the French Naval Aviation. The squadron will be equipped with S-100 drones and carried on the Navy’s Mistral-class amphibious landing ship. The formation of this carrier-based drone squadron reflects the French Navy’s desire to integrate drone expertise into a single professional team. Previously, the French Navy discussed the establishment of a dedicated drone squadron and the option of equipping the 31F, 35F or 36F squadrons with drones.
At the Paris Air Show in June 2004, the full-scale model of the NX70 Neuron unmanned combat aircraft displayed by the French Dassault Aviation Company rekindled people’s interest in the development of European drones. Iran, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates…some new countries have disrupted the geopolitical landscape of drones and are writing a new page.
It can be predicted that drones will become the biggest highlight in the development of weapons and equipment in various countries around the world, and become the “trump card” of land warfare, naval warfare, air warfare, and space warfare in the 21st century. It will become a new combat force in offensive and defensive operations. It can not only use the various ground attack weapons it carries to strike enemy ground military targets in frontline and deep areas, but also use air-to-ground missiles or bombs to suppress enemy air defense weapons; it can not only use weapons such as anti-tank missiles to attack enemy tanks or tank groups, but also use weapons such as cluster bombs to bomb enemy ground forces; it can not only detect targets and judge the value of targets and then launch missiles autonomously, but also deceive and interfere with enemy command and control systems, etc. The world’s military powers will set off a battle to form a “man-machine (robot drone)” integrated force
With the deepening of military-civilian integration, the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, and the rapid development of big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things, not only will the development of unmanned weapons and equipment bring about tremendous changes, but it will also subvert the existing military force formation form. The “human-machine (robot-drone)” integrated intelligent army is bound to come.
In December 2015, in addition to sending traditional combat forces to the Syrian battlefield, the Russian army also sent a robot combat company mainly composed of unmanned combat platforms to participate in the battle for the first time. The company adopted a new combat mode of mixed manned and unmanned formations, built an intelligent combat system with the “Andromeda-D” automated command system as the core, and launched an attack on Hill 754.5 using a combination of full-dimensional reconnaissance and saturation attack, successfully seizing the hill. A few years ago, U.S. Navy officials in charge of expeditionary operations mentioned the vision of building a thousand man-machine combined warships, that is, a larger fleet of unmanned ships controlled by humans and coordinated with each other. The U.S. Navy announced that it plans to build an unmanned fleet of 10 large unmanned surface ships in the next five years for independent operations or joint operations with surface forces. According to the conceptual plan currently disclosed by the U.S. Navy, the unmanned fleet composed of large unmanned surface ships will mainly assist the Navy in completing highly dangerous combat missions. By combining with the Aegis combat system and other sensors, the coordinated combat capabilities of manned and unmanned systems will be enhanced. Its deployment will help reduce the demand for the number of large manned warships and reduce casualties in combat. According to the National Interest Network on January 20, 2021, the U.S. Navy Chief of Operations Michael Gilday released the “Navigation Plan of the Chief of Naval Operations” document on January 11, calling for the establishment of a mixed fleet of man-machine ships including large warships, various types of unmanned ships, submersibles and air strike equipment to prepare for all-domain operations in the new threat environment in the next few decades. The document states: “It is necessary to establish a larger fleet of underwater, surface and water platforms that meet the strategic and campaign needs of the troops, and a mixture of manned and unmanned platforms.”
In the “man-machine (robot-drone)” integrated forces, artificial intelligence technology is used to achieve an organic combination of “man-machine”, and cloud computing, new algorithms, and big data are used to formulate “man-machine” collaborative combat plans. Artificial intelligence is like an engine, big data + cloud computing is like a spaceship, and intelligent robots are astronauts. The organic combination of the three will surely add wings to the tiger and integrate man and machine. The future army is a human-machine integrated army. The squad and platoon commanders are gradually replaced by robots. Robots are gradually transformed from human control to autonomous decision-making or mind control through human brain cells. There may also be canteen-free barracks in the military camps. The military management may also be led by one or several military personnel to lead multiple or even dozens of intelligent robot teams with different division of labor tasks to complete the combat training management tasks that were previously completed by squads, platoons, and companies. Or there may be only one military commander in the command and control center for military training, and all intelligent robots in the training grounds may be controlled through video command and control for confrontation training, or remote control robot commanders may issue new training instructions, adjust task deployment, and change training grounds in real time.
The urgent need for the intelligent quality of military talents will also force the readjustment of the setting of the first-level military disciplines in the field of artificial intelligence. In the future, military academies will also open intelligent robot control disciplines, establish relevant human-machine integration laboratories and training bases, and focus on training intelligent professional military talents who understand computer control programs, intelligent design and management, image cognition, data mining, knowledge graphs, and can systematically master intelligent science and technology and have innovative consciousness. Future military talents must be proficient in intelligent technology, big data applications, and cloud computing, especially in the use of 3D or 4D printing technology to make various military equipment at any time, proficient in the control procedures, command methods, command issuance, and adjustment of tasks of intelligent robots, and proficient in the essentials of human-machine integrated autonomous combat coordination, so as to achieve the best combination of human information technology quality and efficient operation of intelligent robots. In addition, it is not ruled out that human-machine integration squads, combat simulation centers, imaginary enemy forces, combat units, intelligent headquarters, unmanned brigades, divisions, etc. will be established. By then, the military chief may also have one human and one machine, or the robot may serve as a hand or deputy.
With the accelerated application of cutting-edge technology in the military field, intelligent unmanned systems have become an important part of modern warfare. The world’s major military powers attach great importance to the application of intelligent unmanned system technology in the military field. In the future, intelligent unmanned systems will have a profound impact on combat methods and subvert the rules of war. As a culmination of cutting-edge science and technology (such as artificial intelligence, intelligent robots, intelligent perception, intelligent computing, etc.), intelligent unmanned systems represent the highest level of development of a country’s scientific and technological strength. Therefore, research in the field of intelligent unmanned systems can greatly promote the development of existing military and livelihood fields. At present, unmanned system equipment has emerged in military conflicts. For example, in the conflict between Turkey and Syria, Turkey used the Anka-S long-flight drone and the Barakta TB-2 reconnaissance and strike drone equipped by the Air Force to attack the Syrian government forces; the Russian Ministry of Defense also announced that militants in Syria used drones carrying explosives to launch a cluster attack on its military bases; in 2020, the United States used an MQ-9 “Reaper” drone to attack a senior Iranian military commander and killed him on the spot. Unmanned combat is coming, and intelligent unmanned systems, as a key weapon on the future battlefield, will determine the victory of the entire war.
Image from the Internet
The development of intelligent unmanned systems will not only promote the upgrading and progress of existing military technology, but also drive the intelligent development of civilian technology, including intelligent transportation systems, smart home systems, intelligent manufacturing systems and intelligent medical systems. In order to develop intelligent unmanned systems more scientifically and rapidly, major scientific and technological powers have introduced a series of plans and routes for the development of intelligent unmanned systems, striving to seize the initiative and commanding heights in the development of intelligent unmanned systems. Related ones include the United States’ integrated roadmap for autonomous unmanned systems, Russia’s national weapons and equipment plan, the United Kingdom’s defense innovation technology framework, China’s new generation of artificial intelligence development plan, and Japan’s medium- and long-term technology plan. In recent years, from air to space, from land to sea, various types of intelligent unmanned systems have emerged in large numbers. The world’s major powers have gradually deployed intelligent unmanned systems into the military, and in some regional conflicts and anti-terrorism battlefields, the key role of intelligent unmanned systems is increasing. Therefore, this article will focus on the military needs of the future battlefield, based on the challenges of the actual complex environment faced by the future battlefield, analyze the key technologies required for the development and application of intelligent unmanned systems, and analyze the key technologies of individual enhancement and cluster enhancement from a military perspective, and explain the development trend of intelligent unmanned systems.
Current research status at home and abroad
The concept of intelligent unmanned system has only been proposed recently. At present, its research is still in its early stages, and there is no unified definition in the world. It is temporarily defined as: an organic whole composed of an unmanned platform and several auxiliary parts, with the ability to perceive, interact and learn, and capable of autonomous reasoning and decision-making based on knowledge to achieve the goal. Intelligent unmanned systems can be divided into three major parts: land unmanned systems, air unmanned systems and marine unmanned systems according to the spatial scope of their functions. Among them, land unmanned systems mainly include reconnaissance unmanned vehicles, transport unmanned vehicles, combat unmanned vehicles, obstacle removal unmanned vehicles, bomb disposal unmanned vehicles, unmanned vehicle formations and command systems, etc.; air unmanned systems mainly include reconnaissance drones, combat drones, logistics transport drones and drone formations, etc.; marine unmanned systems mainly include reconnaissance unmanned boats, combat unmanned boats, logistics transport unmanned boats, patrol search and rescue unmanned boats, reconnaissance unmanned submarines, combat unmanned submarines and shore-based support systems, etc. This section will explain the current research status of intelligent unmanned systems at home and abroad from the above three parts. ⒈ Current status of foreign intelligent unmanned system research ⑴ Land unmanned system Land unmanned systems are mainly used in intelligence collection, reconnaissance and patrol, mine clearance and obstacle removal, firepower strike, battlefield rescue, logistics transportation, communication relay and electronic interference. As the advantages of land unmanned systems in combat become more and more prominent, research on them has attracted more and more attention from various countries. The United States launched the “Joint Tactical Unmanned Vehicle” project in November 1993, which is the predecessor of the “Gladiator” unmanned combat platform project. In 2006, the United States completed the design of the entire system of the “Gladiator” unmanned combat platform and officially equipped the Marine Corps in 2007. The “Gladiator” tactical unmanned combat platform is the world’s first multi-purpose combat unmanned platform. It is equipped with sensor systems such as day/night cameras, GPS positioning systems, and acoustic and laser search systems. It is also equipped with machine guns, submachine guns, tear gas, sniper systems, biological and chemical weapons detection systems, etc. It can perform reconnaissance, nuclear and biological weapons detection, obstacle breakthrough, anti-sniper, firepower strike and direct shooting in different weather and terrain. The Gladiator unmanned combat platform is equipped with a highly mobile and survivable chassis. For this platform, a portable handheld control system has also been developed, and a series of development work has been completed around the technical issues of the control system’s anti-interference, network interoperability, miniaturization and ease of operation. However, due to the weak armor protection capability of the Gladiator unmanned combat platform and the poor concealment of its mission, its long-range reconnaissance and control system faces more interference. In addition, the US Army has also put some other land unmanned systems into service, such as the Scorpion robot and the Claw robot. In 2017, the US Army formulated the Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Strategy, which provides a top-level plan for the construction of unmanned combat capabilities. Figure 1 shows the US land unmanned system.
Figure 1 US land unmanned system Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom and Germany have also successively carried out the development of land unmanned systems and developed a series of advanced products. The product list is shown in Table 1. For example, the “Guardian” series of autonomous unmanned vehicles developed by Israel can combine the sensors and fusion algorithms on board to autonomously detect and identify dangerous obstacles, and perform patrol, surveillance and small-scale fire strike tasks; the MARSA-800 unmanned vehicle developed by Russia can perform tasks such as transportation and logistics support, tracking and surveillance, and can realize autonomous path planning and avoid obstacles during the execution of tasks. The unmanned vehicle has been deployed on the Syrian battlefield. The United Kingdom and Germany also started research on land unmanned systems earlier. The United Kingdom launched a trolley bomb disposal robot in the 1960s, and later launched the Harris T7 tactile feedback robot for performing dangerous tasks such as bomb disposal and bomb disposal; the “Mission Master” ground armed reconnaissance unmanned vehicle developed by Germany’s Rheinmetall is mainly used to perform tactical surveillance, dangerous object detection, medical evacuation, communication relay and fire support tasks.
Table 1 Land unmanned systems of various countries
⑵ Aerial unmanned systems Aerial unmanned systems are mainly based on single drone platforms and drone clusters. Due to their advantages such as wide field of view, freedom of flight, and good equipment carrying capacity, drones are widely used in the military field and have played a great role in military conflicts in recent years. The main functions of aerial unmanned systems include: intelligence gathering, reconnaissance and surveillance, decoy target aircraft, target tracking, tactical strikes and air rescue. In 2000, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory proposed the concept of autonomous combat for unmanned aerial vehicles, quantified the degree of autonomy of unmanned aerial vehicles, and formulated a development plan. The quantitative content and development stage of the degree of autonomy of unmanned aerial vehicles are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Autonomous control level and the trend of autonomous
unmanned aerial vehicles In 2003, the United States merged the unmanned combat aircraft system projects of the Air Force and the Navy, launched the “Joint Unmanned Combat System” (J-UCAS) project, and began research on the unmanned combat aircraft X-47B. In 2006, the U.S. Navy proposed the “Navy Unmanned Combat Air System” (N-UCAS) project, which aims to introduce unmanned combat aircraft to the aircraft carrier-based aircraft wing and continue to conduct research on the X-47B. Between 2012 and 2014, the aircraft carrier catapult, landing, touch-and-go and other tests were completed many times, and the autonomous aerial refueling test was completed in 2015. The X-47B attack drone is an autonomously maneuverable, stealthy, and land-based and ship-based unmanned combat aircraft. It has the characteristics of high range and high flight time, and is equipped with advanced sensors such as illumination radar, optoelectronic guidance system, and aperture radar. Its main functions include intelligence reconnaissance, target tracking, electronic warfare interference, and firepower strikes. Other unmanned aerial systems developed by the United States, such as the Global Hawk, Predator, Hunter, and Raven, have also been in service in the military, as shown in Figure 3. The “Harpy” drone developed by Israel is equipped with anti-radar sensors, optoelectronic guidance systems and missiles, and can autonomously attack enemy radar systems, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3 Aerial Unmanned Systems of Various Countries
A single aerial unmanned system is easily interfered with and attacked when performing a mission, resulting in mission failure, while an aerial unmanned system cluster can make up for this defect and give full play to the advantages of aerial unmanned systems. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States has successively launched the “Gremlins” low-cost drone project, the low-cost drone cluster project, the “Perdix” micro-drone airborne high-speed launch demonstration project, and the offensive swarm enabling tactics (OFFSET) project for aerial unmanned system clusters. By developing and testing the architecture, communication system and distributed control algorithm for unmanned system clusters, an autonomous control system for drone clusters has been developed, and cutting-edge scientific and technological technologies such as artificial intelligence, situational awareness, virtual reality and augmented reality have been used to enhance the comprehensive combat capability of aerial unmanned system clusters on the battlefield.
⑶ Marine unmanned systems Marine unmanned systems include two types: surface unmanned systems and underwater unmanned systems. Among them, surface unmanned systems mainly refer to surface unmanned boats (hereinafter referred to as “unmanned boats”), which are mainly used to perform tasks such as maritime search and rescue, reconnaissance and surveillance, firepower strikes, patrol security, electronic interference, logistics support and decoy target ships; underwater unmanned systems mainly refer to unmanned submersibles. Compared with manned submarines, they have the advantages of no casualties, high concealment and high autonomy, and are mainly used to perform intelligence collection, target monitoring, combat deterrence and firepower strikes. In 2018, the US Navy released the “Navy Department Unmanned System Strategic Roadmap”, and in 2019, it released the “Navy Artificial Intelligence Framework”, which provides route planning and guidance for the development of naval operations and marine unmanned systems. In terms of surface unmanned systems, the United States proposed the “American Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration Project” (ACTD), one of whose important tasks is to carry out research on the “Spartan Scout” unmanned boat. The project was completed in 2007 and tested in the Iraqi theater. The “Spartan Scout” unmanned boat is equipped with an unmanned driving system and a line-of-sight/beyond-line-of-sight communication system, as well as advanced sensors such as electro-optical/infrared search turrets, high-definition cameras, navigation radars, surface search radars, and global positioning system receivers, as well as weapons such as naval guns, anti-ship missiles, and anti-submarine sensors. It is mainly used to perform intelligence collection, target monitoring, information reconnaissance, anti-mine and maritime security tasks, and has a certain degree of autonomy. The “Sea Hunter” unmanned boat developed by the United States is equipped with sonar and optoelectronic sensors, as well as short-range and long-range radar detection systems and expandable modular sonar systems. It is mainly used to perform tasks such as identifying and monitoring suspicious targets and guiding fire strikes. The US marine unmanned system is shown in Figure 4. The “Protector” unmanned boat developed by Israel is mainly used to perform intelligence reconnaissance, suspicious target identification, tactical interception, electronic interference and precision strikes (Figure 4). The unmanned surface reconnaissance boat developed by Russia can perform rapid patrol tasks under the command of the mother ship and inspect and monitor designated areas to search for intelligence.
Figure 4 Marine unmanned systems of various countries
In terms of underwater unmanned systems, the nuclear-powered unmanned submarine “Poseidon” developed by Russia can carry conventional and nuclear warheads to perform reconnaissance and strategic nuclear strike missions, as shown in Figure 4. The “Knifefish” unmanned submarine developed by the United States can scan suspicious objects and search for intelligence by emitting low-frequency electromagnetic waves; the “Tuna”-9 unmanned submarine developed by the United States can carry a variety of standard payloads and can be used to perform offshore exploration, anti-mine, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other tasks.
⒉ Current status of domestic intelligent unmanned system research In recent years, China’s military intelligent unmanned systems have developed rapidly. This article will explain the three aspects of land unmanned systems, air unmanned systems and marine unmanned systems. In terms of land unmanned systems, the National University of Defense Technology and Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. jointly developed the “Desert Wolf” land unmanned light platform, which is powered by tracks and equipped with weapon systems such as grenade launchers and machine guns. It can be used to perform logistics transportation, wounded transportation, reconnaissance monitoring, firepower strikes and other tasks. The “Longma” series of unmanned vehicles developed by Sunward Intelligent Group have strong transportation and obstacle crossing capabilities. The “Shenxing-III” military ground intelligent robot system developed by Nanjing University of Science and Technology has strong autonomous navigation and intelligence reconnaissance capabilities. The unmanned nuclear reconnaissance vehicle jointly developed by the National University of Defense Technology and Harbin Institute of Technology has high mobility and armor protection capabilities. The weapon system it carries can perform fire strikes and has certain autonomous capabilities. In terms of aerial unmanned systems, the “Wing Loong” series of unmanned aerial vehicles developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group has fully autonomous horizontal take-off and landing capabilities, cruise flight capabilities, air-to-ground coordination capabilities, and ground relay control capabilities. It is equipped with multiple types of optoelectronic/electronic reconnaissance equipment and small air-to-ground precision strike weapons, and can perform intelligence reconnaissance, target tracking, fire strikes and other tasks. The “Rainbow” series of unmanned aerial vehicles developed by China have medium-altitude and long-range navigation capabilities, can carry electronic jamming systems and a variety of weapon systems, and can perform fire strikes, intelligence reconnaissance, communication jamming, radio wave jamming and other tasks; the attack 11 type unmanned aerial vehicle developed has extremely strong stealth capabilities and can carry precision-guided missiles for ground attack missions. China’s aerial unmanned systems are shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5 China’s aerial unmanned systems
In terms of surface unmanned systems of marine unmanned systems, the “Tianxing No. 1” unmanned boat, developed by Harbin Engineering University, uses oil-electric hybrid power, with a maximum speed of more than 92.6km/h and a maximum range of 1,000km. It is currently the fastest unmanned boat in the world. The boat integrates technologies such as autonomous perception, intelligent control, and autonomous decision-making, and can achieve rapid situation information recognition and danger avoidance of the surrounding complex environment. It can be used to perform tasks such as meteorological information monitoring, landform mapping, alert patrol, intelligence reconnaissance, and firepower attack. The “Jinghai” series of unmanned boats developed by Shanghai University have semi-autonomous and fully autonomous operation capabilities, and can perform tasks such as target reconnaissance, ocean mapping, and water quality testing. The “Haiteng 01” intelligent high-speed unmanned boat developed by Shanghai Maritime University is equipped with sensors such as millimeter-wave radar, laser radar, and forward-looking sonar. It can perform suspicious target monitoring, underwater measurement, maritime search and rescue, and other tasks, and has fully autonomous and semi-autonomous navigation capabilities. The JARI intelligent unmanned combat boat developed by Jiangsu Automation Research Institute is equipped with detection equipment such as photoelectric detectors and four-sided phased arrays. At the same time, it is also equipped with weapon systems such as missiles and torpedoes, which can perform tasks such as intelligence collection, enemy reconnaissance, and precision firepower strikes. The “Lookout II” unmanned missile boat jointly developed by Zhuhai Yunzhou Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. and other units is equipped with a fully autonomous unmanned driving system and missiles and other weapons, which can perform tasks such as enemy reconnaissance, intelligence collection, and precision firepower strikes. China’s marine unmanned system is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6 China’s marine unmanned system
In terms of underwater unmanned systems of marine unmanned systems, the “Devil Fish” unmanned submersible developed by Northwestern Polytechnical University is a bionic manta ray unmanned submersible that has completed a deep-sea test of 1025m. The “Wukong” full-sea depth unmanned submersible developed by Harbin Engineering University has successfully completed a deep dive and autonomous operation test of 10,896m. Deep-sea submersibles such as “Qianlong No. 1” and “Seahorse” developed by China have successfully completed deep-sea exploration missions.
⒊ Summary of the current state of technology At present, intelligent unmanned systems have been gradually applied to various fields of military applications, and with the development of cutting-edge science and technology, the application of intelligent unmanned systems in the military field will increase day by day. However, in the use of intelligent unmanned systems, autonomy and intelligence have not yet been fully realized. At present, the application status of intelligent unmanned system technology in the military field can be mainly divided into the following three parts:
① From the perspective of combat missions: combat missions have developed from simple reconnaissance and surveillance to mainstream confrontation operations; battlefield confrontation has changed from human confrontation to human-machine confrontation, and then to machine-machine confrontation; the application environment has changed from structured environment and laboratory environment to real battlefield environment, and will gradually develop into an augmented reality environment combining real environment and virtual reality in the future. ② From the perspective of command and control: the control method has developed from simple remote control and program control of a single machine to intelligent fusion and interactive control of human-machine, but autonomous control has not yet been fully realized; the system architecture has developed from specialization and singularity to generalization, standardization, and interoperability. ③ From the perspective of perception and decision-making: the decision-making method has changed from relying solely on people to relying mainly on people and supplemented by human-machine intelligent interactive decision-making; the perception method has changed from relying solely on sensors to obtain feature information and people to judge target attributes to target recognition and feature information acquisition based on artificial intelligence.
Key technologies of intelligent unmanned systems
As a culmination of multidisciplinary fields, intelligent unmanned systems involve many technologies, perform diverse tasks, and have complex and changeable application scenarios. For example, the air environment is rainy and foggy, with low visibility, strong winds, and light interference; the land environment has complex terrain, obstacles, interference, and dangerous pollution areas; the sea environment has wind and wave interference, ship swaying, inconspicuous targets, and irregular coastlines. Different environments and uses pose huge challenges to the research and performance of intelligent unmanned system technology. In order to adapt to the restricted and changing environment, the key technologies of intelligent unmanned systems can be summarized as autonomous perception and understanding technology in complex environments, multi-scenario autonomous skill learning and intelligent control technology, multi-task cluster collaboration technology, human-computer interaction and human-computer fusion technology, decision-making planning technology and navigation and positioning technology. This section will mainly use marine unmanned systems as examples to elaborate on the key technologies of intelligent unmanned systems.
⒈ Autonomous perception and understanding technology in complex environments Autonomous perception and scene understanding of the environment in complex environments is a prerequisite for intelligent unmanned systems to operate autonomously and form combat capabilities, which will directly affect whether the mission can be successfully completed. In view of the complexity and variability of the actual environment, especially the difficulties of wind and wave interference and ship shaking in the sea environment, intelligent unmanned systems need to complete the goals of autonomous target selection perception, obtain multimodal information, and abstract and complete understanding of information. Therefore, the autonomous perception and understanding technology of the environment of intelligent unmanned systems in complex environments needs to break through the autonomous perception technology of multimodal sensor fusion, as well as the complex scene target recognition and understanding technology.
⑴ Multimodal sensor fusion autonomous perception technology At present, the information acquisition sensors carried by intelligent unmanned systems mainly include navigation radar, millimeter wave radar, laser radar, optoelectronic payload, etc. A single sensor cannot directly obtain high-precision, dense three-dimensional scene information. It is necessary to study the autonomous environmental perception technology of multi-sensor fusion to provide support for scene understanding. Multi-sensor fusion is to carry out multi-level and multi-space information complementation and optimization combination processing of various sensors, and finally produce a consistent interpretation of the observed environment. In this process, it is necessary to make full use of multi-source data for reasonable control and use, and the ultimate goal of information fusion is to derive more useful information based on the separated observation information obtained by each sensor through multi-level and multi-faceted combination of information. By taking advantage of the mutual cooperation of multiple sensors, the data of all information sources are comprehensively processed to improve the intelligence of the entire sensor system. The natural environment of the ocean is more complex than that of land and air. Faced with special challenges such as violent swaying of ships, wind and wave interference, uneven lighting, and inconspicuous targets, the marine intelligent unmanned system needs to perform multi-sensor information fusion processing on the designated target based on the unique attributes of each sensor, and then combine the electronic chart information of the internal navigation unit of the unmanned system and the shore-based support system to build a multi-dimensional three-dimensional situation map of the sea surface environment, perform tracking, detection, identification and cognition tasks for the designated target, and finally realize the autonomous perception and complete understanding of the sea surface environment by the marine intelligent unmanned system.
⑵ Complex scene target recognition and understanding technology The key to the operation autonomy of intelligent unmanned systems lies in the ability to effectively understand the scene and target information, and accurate understanding of scene information mainly includes the construction of target semantic information and the description of scene text information. Compared with land and air environments, the natural marine environment faces unique difficulties such as wind and wave interference and violent swaying of the hull, which brings challenges to the intelligent unmanned system to fully understand the environmental information and accurately identify the designated target. Using sensors such as laser radar and high-definition cameras carried by intelligent unmanned systems, the original point cloud information and image feature information of the marine environment scene can be obtained. Using three-dimensional target detection methods based on point clouds, point clouds and image fusion, and three-dimensional scene semantic segmentation methods, etc., the intelligent unmanned system can fully recognize the scene information and accurately identify the designated target. There are mainly two types of point cloud-based methods: grid-based or voxel-based methods, and point-based methods. The grid-based or voxel-based method uses voxels or bird’s-eye views to convert the irregular point cloud of the acquired sea surface into a regular representation method, and then extracts the point cloud features. The point-based method directly extracts target features from the acquired original point cloud of the sea surface. The three-dimensional target detection method based on point cloud and image fusion combines the precise coordinates of the target in the sea scene obtained by the laser radar with the environmental texture and color information provided by the sea surface image, which is more conducive to the intelligent unmanned system to accurately identify and accurately and completely understand the target of the ocean scene.
⒉ Behavior decision-making and trajectory planning technology In actual and complex war scenes, for the complex mission environment and multiple tasks faced by intelligent unmanned systems, it is necessary to break through the behavior decision-making technology in multi-source heterogeneous environments, trajectory planning technology in dynamic/static environments, and trajectory tracking technology in complex scenes.
⑴ Behavior decision-making technology in multi-source heterogeneous environments Behavior decision-making is the key to the realization of autonomous control of intelligent unmanned systems. In the complex environment of different speeds, different relative distances, and different data types of unmanned boats, it is necessary to accurately extract effective information to make safe and reliable control instructions for the next decision of the unmanned boat. First, extract representative environmental feature information and establish a sufficient number of accurately calibrated learning data sets; then, construct a decision maker based on a deep neural network and use the established database for learning; finally, use machine learning algorithms to optimize the constructed decision maker to further improve the decision accuracy. ⑵Trajectory planning technology in dynamic/static environment Trajectory change is the most basic behavior of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines. In a complex battlefield environment, planning a feasible and reliable trajectory according to different environmental conditions is the key to the intelligent driving of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines. This technology mainly includes trajectory planning technology based on polynomials, trajectory planning technology based on multi-objective constraints, and trajectory planning technology based on positive and negative trapezoidal lateral acceleration.
⑶Trajectory tracking technology in complex scenes Tracking the planned ideal trajectory is an important task for unmanned boats and unmanned submarines. The key lies in solving the problem of high-precision and high-stability control when unmanned boats or unmanned submarines track target trajectories. The main solution is: according to the kinematic and dynamic models of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines, the corresponding actuator control quantity is output to achieve real-time and accurate tracking of the specified target, and under the premise of ensuring tracking accuracy, the autonomous intelligent steering of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines and the coordinated control of multiple actuators of each drive module are realized.
⒊Autonomous navigation and positioning technology The navigation and positioning system is a key component of the intelligent unmanned system, which can provide accurate and reliable information about the speed and position of unmanned boats or unmanned submarines. The navigation system is generally composed of gyroscopes, accelerometers, satellite receivers, etc., some of which are supplemented by visual modules, or are equipped with prior spatial position maps and physical information sensors based on actual complex environmental conditions. In order to achieve accurate execution of tasks, intelligent unmanned systems must break through navigation and positioning technology based on inertial/satellite deep information fusion, navigation and positioning technology based on inertial/astronomical information fusion, navigation technology based on visual tracking, and geophysical assisted navigation technology.
⑴ Navigation and positioning technology based on inertial/satellite deep information fusion This technology introduces the inertial information of the unmanned boat into the satellite carrier/code loop, and then uses fully autonomous, short-term, and high-precision inertial information to assist the update of satellite receiver signals, thereby realizing the complementary advantages and optimal fusion of the inertial navigation and satellite navigation of the unmanned boat.
⑵ Navigation and positioning technology based on inertial/astronomical information fusion The astronomical-based navigation system has the advantages of high autonomy and low susceptibility to interference. By using the information output by astronomical navigation and the information provided by the initial position, the position of the unmanned boat can be calculated. The fusion of inertial navigation information and astronomical navigation information can improve the robustness of astronomical navigation positioning. Inertial/astronomical combined positioning technology based on astronomical navigation assistance has become a key part of the field of autonomous navigation of unmanned systems.
⑶ Navigation technology based on visual tracking Due to the complexity of the actual battlefield environment, unmanned boats will be in a complex working environment and are easily interfered by the outside world, resulting in GPS denial, which makes the navigation system unable to be in a combined state. A single inertial navigation system has low accuracy and is prone to accumulating errors. Long-term pure inertial navigation will make the unmanned boat lose the ability to perform tasks. However, the vision-based method does not have time error accumulation. It only needs to extract the key features of the image obtained by the high-definition camera to obtain the position information of the unmanned boat and the unmanned submersible through visual algorithms and prior knowledge. The vision-based navigation algorithm is not easily interfered with, has strong robustness, and can make up for the error accumulation caused by pure inertial navigation in a GPS denial environment, and is widely used.
⑷ Geophysical assisted navigation technology Due to the unique environment of the ocean, unmanned submersibles need to sail underwater for a long time, resulting in the inability to obtain real-time and accurate satellite signals and astronomical information. In addition, due to problems such as weak underwater light, vision-based navigation methods are also limited. Therefore, by obtaining a priori spatial position map inside the ocean and using the field scene information obtained by the physical sensors carried by the unmanned submersible and matching them, high-precision autonomous navigation of the unmanned submersible can be achieved. The temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of the inherent geophysical properties of the surveyed ocean can be used to produce a geophysical navigation spatial position map. By matching the physical feature information obtained by the physical property sensor carried by the unmanned submersible with the pre-carried spatial position map, the high-precision positioning of the unmanned submersible can be obtained, and the high-precision autonomous navigation of the unmanned submersible can be realized.
⒋ Multi-scenario autonomous skill learning and intelligent control technology Multi-scenario intelligent control technology is a key technology for intelligent unmanned systems to solve complex, changeable and unstable control objects. It is an effective tool for intelligent unmanned systems to adapt to complex task requirements. In a complex marine environment, if intelligent unmanned systems want to complete real-time and accurate regional monitoring, target tracking, information acquisition and precision strikes, they must break through the autonomous skill learning technology of tasks, autonomous operation interactive control technology, and unmanned system motion control technology of human-like intelligent control.
⑴ Autonomous skill learning technology of tasks Autonomous skill learning refers to the process of learning based on prior knowledge or rules to complete tasks in the process of interaction between unmanned systems and the outside world. The autonomous learning of unmanned system operation skills is essentially a partial process of simulating human learning cognition. Intelligent unmanned systems use deep reinforcement learning-based technology to combine the perception ability of deep learning with the decision-making ability of reinforcement learning, and can achieve direct control from high-latitude raw data information input to decision output in complex sea environments. The autonomous skill learning of intelligent unmanned systems mainly includes three aspects: first, describing the complex environment of the ocean surface and the interior of the ocean, and obtaining the initial state data information of the surrounding environment; second, based on the description of the intelligent unmanned system and the complex environment of the ocean surface and the interior, mathematical modeling of deep reinforcement learning is carried out to obtain key information such as the state value function and control strategy function of the autonomous skill learning process; third, using the data information obtained by the interaction between the intelligent unmanned system and the complex environment of the ocean surface and the interior, the state value function and the control strategy function are updated to enable the marine intelligent unmanned system to learn a better control strategy.
⑵ Autonomous operation interactive control technology In the process of autonomous learning and control of tasks, the intelligent unmanned system needs to contact with the ocean surface and the complex internal environment to form a good coupling system to ensure the real-time and accurate acquisition of information on the ocean surface and the complex internal environment, and correctly and quickly carry out navigation planning, autonomous navigation control and autonomous collision avoidance of unmanned boats and unmanned submersibles. The tasks of the interactive control technology of autonomous operation of intelligent unmanned systems mainly include: the design of interactive rules and control strategies of intelligent unmanned systems; modeling methods of complex environments on the surface and inside of the ocean; online modeling and correction of the dynamics of unmanned boats, unmanned submarines and operating objects; dynamic generation and shared control methods of virtual force constraints in complex environments on the surface and inside of the ocean.
⑶ Motion control technology of unmanned systems with humanoid intelligent control The motion control technology of unmanned systems with humanoid intelligent control combines artificial intelligence with traditional control methods to solve the problem of stable and precise control of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines in actual complex marine battlefield environments. It mainly includes two aspects: the design of intelligent control algorithms for unmanned systems and the design of intelligent control strategies for unmanned systems. The design of intelligent control algorithms for unmanned systems mainly includes: hierarchical information processing and decision-making mechanisms; online feature identification and feature memory; open/closed-loop control, positive/negative feedback control, and multi-modal control combining qualitative decision-making with quantitative control; the application of heuristic intuitive reasoning logic. The design of intelligent control strategies for unmanned systems is to design reasonable solutions for unmanned boats or unmanned submarines to meet actual mission requirements.
⒌ Unmanned cluster collaborative control technology In actual combat scenarios, due to the complexity of the battlefield environment and the diversity of tasks, a single unmanned boat or unmanned submarine usually cannot meet the needs of actual tasks. The number of equipment carried by a single unmanned boat or unmanned submarine is limited, and the perception perspective and regional range are not comprehensive enough, resulting in insufficient precision and thoroughness in performing complete intelligence detection, target tracking, battlefield environment perception and comprehensive firepower strike tasks. Therefore, it has become an inevitable trend for a cluster of intelligent unmanned systems composed of multiple unmanned boats and unmanned submarines to collaboratively perform tasks. To complete the control of the intelligent unmanned system cluster, it is necessary to break through the local rule control technology of the intelligent unmanned system cluster, the soft control technology of the intelligent unmanned system cluster, the pilot control technology of the intelligent unmanned system cluster, and the artificial potential field control technology of the intelligent unmanned system.
⑴ Local rule control technology of intelligent unmanned system cluster The control technology based on local rules is the basic method for intelligent unmanned systems to control unmanned boats and unmanned submarines. It mainly lies in the designation of individual local control rules within the cluster of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines. Local rule control technology has achieved intelligent control of marine unmanned system clusters to a certain extent, but a large number of experiments are needed to obtain the parameters between the behavior of marine unmanned system clusters and the cluster model, and the values of the parameters are also very sensitive. Therefore, to achieve complete intelligent control of intelligent unmanned systems, other technologies are needed.
⑵ Soft control technology of intelligent unmanned system clusters The soft control technology of intelligent unmanned system clusters is mainly based on two requirements: First, in the intelligent unmanned system cluster, the control rules between individuals are very important. For example, the control and internal function of each unmanned boat and unmanned submarine are necessary conditions for the group behavior of the entire marine intelligent unmanned system cluster; second, the intelligent unmanned system cluster adopts a local communication strategy. With the increase of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines in the cluster system, it will not affect the state of the entire intelligent unmanned system cluster.
The soft control method is to add one or more new unmanned boats or unmanned submarines without destroying the individual rules of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines in the intelligent unmanned system cluster. These unmanned boats or unmanned submarines participate in the actions of the entire intelligent unmanned system cluster according to the same local rules, but they are controllable and can receive external instructions. After receiving the command, these unmanned boats or unmanned submarines will independently complete the corresponding tasks. The soft control method of the intelligent unmanned system cluster is to add a controllable unmanned boat and unmanned submarine on the basis of the local control rules of the unmanned system, so that it can affect the entire unmanned system cluster, and finally complete the control of the entire intelligent unmanned system group.
⑶ Intelligent unmanned system cluster navigation control technology The basic content of the intelligent unmanned system cluster navigation control technology is: under the premise that the individuals of the entire marine intelligent unmanned system cluster maintain local rules, a small number of unmanned boats and unmanned submarines in the cluster have more information and stronger information processing capabilities, and interact with other unmanned boats and unmanned submarines through local information to play a leading role, so as to achieve the purpose of controlling the entire intelligent unmanned system cluster.
⑷ Artificial potential field control technology of intelligent unmanned system In the control of intelligent unmanned system clusters, control technology based only on local rules is difficult to achieve accurate and real-time perception of the battlefield, as well as the collection and acquisition of intelligence information, tracking and identification of suspicious targets, and precise strikes on enemy areas. Artificial potential field control technology introduces the concept of potential field in physics into the control of intelligent unmanned system clusters, and uses potential functions to simulate the internal and external effects that affect a single unmanned boat or unmanned submarine. The single unmanned boat or unmanned submarine in the system cluster acts under the action of the potential function, and finally realizes the control of the entire intelligent unmanned system through the potential function.
⒍Natural human-computer interaction technology In the actual battlefield environment, intelligent unmanned systems face problems such as complex operation tasks, low level of operation intelligence, high training risks and costs, and low equipment use and maintenance efficiency. In this case, it is necessary to improve the controllability and intelligence of intelligent unmanned system equipment, and it is necessary to break through the human-computer interaction technology of intelligent unmanned systems, augmented reality and mixed reality technology of intelligent unmanned systems, and brain-computer interface technology of intelligent unmanned systems.
⑴Human-computer interaction technology of intelligent unmanned systems Human-computer interaction technology of intelligent unmanned systems refers to the command platform obtaining the image and voice information of officers and soldiers through image and voice sensors, and then using algorithms such as image segmentation, edge detection, and image recognition to extract key information such as gestures and eye gestures of officers and soldiers, and then using algorithms based on deep learning to obtain the voice information of officers and soldiers and pass it to the command platform, so as to issue the officers and soldiers’ instructions to lower-level combat units. The human-computer interaction technology of intelligent unmanned systems can improve the intelligence of task operations and the fault tolerance and robustness of the operation process, so that the officers and soldiers’ instructions can be issued to combat units more stably and effectively.
⑵Augmented reality and mixed reality technology of intelligent unmanned systems Augmented reality technology of intelligent unmanned systems is to superimpose computer-generated images on real complex combat environments, and mixed reality technology of intelligent unmanned systems is to present information of virtual scenes in actual combat scenes, and set up an interactive feedback information loop between the virtual world and officers and soldiers in a real combat environment, thereby increasing the officers and soldiers’ sense of reality in the combat environment experience. As an important development direction of immersive human-computer interaction technology, virtual reality and augmented reality for intelligent unmanned systems have a variety of different real combat application scenarios, which can effectively reduce the cost and risk of training and improve the use and maintenance efficiency of equipment during combat.
⑶ Brain-computer interface technology for intelligent unmanned systems The main function of the brain-computer interface is to capture a series of brain wave signals generated by the human brain when thinking. In actual combat environments, the brain-computer interface technology of intelligent unmanned systems extracts features and classifies the brain wave signals of commanders and fighters, thereby identifying the intentions of commanders and fighters and making corresponding decisions to cope with complex combat tasks and emergencies. The brain-computer interface technology of intelligent unmanned systems can enhance the cognitive and decision-making capabilities of commanders and fighters, greatly improve brain-computer interaction and brain control technology, and give commanders and fighters the ability to control multiple unmanned boats, unmanned submarines and other unmanned combat equipment while relying on thinking.
Future development trend of intelligent unmanned systems
Due to its advantages of unmanned, autonomous, and intelligent, intelligent unmanned systems will appear in every corner of the future battlefield. As they undertake more battlefield tasks, they will participate in different war scenarios, which will lead to a number of key problems for intelligent unmanned systems, restricting their development. The key problems faced by intelligent unmanned systems are mainly:
① Highly complex environment. The specific application environment of intelligent unmanned systems will face more and more factors. The numerous shelters in unstructured environments, the limited perception viewpoints and ranges, etc., put forward higher requirements on the environmental perception ability of intelligent unmanned systems. ② High game confrontation. The battlefield game of intelligent unmanned systems is an important means to gain battlefield advantages. The fierce mobile confrontation between the two sides of the war, as well as the many interferences caused by the enemy and the battlefield environment, have put forward new challenges to the mobile decision-making ability of intelligent unmanned systems. ③ High real-time response. In the future battlefield, the combat situation will change dramatically, the combat mode will be more flexible and changeable, and it is necessary to respond to battlefield emergencies in a timely manner, which puts forward new requirements for the real-time response ability of intelligent unmanned systems. ④ Incomplete information. In the future battlefield, due to the limitations of the battlefield environment and the existence of enemy interference, the information acquisition ability of the intelligent unmanned system will be restricted, resulting in incomplete situational awareness, loss and attenuation of battlefield situation information data, and the inability to fully obtain information on both sides of the enemy. ⑤ Uncertain boundaries. The unmanned combat mode of the intelligent unmanned system has subverted the traditional combat mode. The integration of land, sea, air and space in the future unmanned combat, as well as the social public opinion brought about by the high degree of integration with society, will have an impact on the unmanned combat of the intelligent unmanned system, thus causing uncertainty in the combat boundary.
Based on the various difficulties that will be faced above, the development of intelligent unmanned systems in the future will focus on two aspects: individual capability enhancement and cluster capability enhancement. Individual capability enhancement is mainly reflected in individual cognitive intelligence, individual autonomous operation and algorithm chipization; cluster capability enhancement is mainly reflected in improving interoperability through a universal architecture, as well as cross-domain collaborative operations, network security and human-machine hybrid intelligence.
⒈ Cognitive intelligence adapts to complex task environments In order to improve the adaptability of intelligent unmanned systems in highly complex environments, it is necessary to enhance the individual cognitive intelligence of intelligent unmanned systems. The enhancement of individual cognitive intelligence is mainly reflected in the transformation from individual perceptual intelligence to cognitive intelligence. The comprehensive acquisition of multi-source sensor information enables intelligent unmanned systems to have human semantic understanding, associative reasoning, judgment analysis, decision planning, emotional understanding and other capabilities. The development of individual cognitive intelligence of intelligent unmanned systems will be based on brain science and bionics, and will achieve intelligent understanding and accurate application of acquired information by combining knowledge graphs, artificial intelligence, knowledge reasoning, decision intelligence and other technologies, thereby improving the high real-time response capabilities of intelligent unmanned systems to emergencies.
⒉ Autonomous operation improves the task capability of single machines In order to solve the problem of highly complex tasks faced by intelligent unmanned systems in highly complex environments, it is necessary to improve the autonomous operation capabilities of single machines. This includes developing decision-making methods based on deep reinforcement learning, autonomous environmental perception and interaction methods based on multi-source information of vision and other sensors, autonomous motion planning methods for robots based on neurodynamics, and autonomous operation methods based on artificial intelligence, so as to improve the autonomous environmental modeling and positioning capabilities, autonomous decision-making capabilities, autonomous planning capabilities and autonomous control capabilities of individuals in intelligent unmanned systems, so that intelligent unmanned systems can adapt to complex environments and carry out autonomous operation tasks.
⒊ Algorithm chipization achieves high real-time response The complex environment faced by intelligent unmanned systems places high demands on algorithms and computing power. It is necessary to be able to accelerate computing in real time to achieve high real-time response to battlefield emergencies. To solve this problem, it is necessary to improve the chipization level of individual algorithms of intelligent unmanned systems, that is, to develop a new architecture of storage and computing integrated chips to improve the computing power of chips and the level of algorithm chipization. New chips based on artificial neural technology can be studied. By changing the binary computing method of digital chips and exchanging gradient signals or weight signals, the chips can work in a simulated neuron manner, simulating the parallel computing flow of the brain to effectively process large amounts of data, and obtaining the parallel computing capabilities of supercomputers, thereby greatly improving the computing power of chips and the level of algorithm chipization, and solving the problem of high real-time response of intelligent unmanned systems.
⒋ Universal architecture improves cluster interoperability In order to improve the adaptability of intelligent unmanned systems facing highly complex environments and the maintenance and support efficiency of intelligent unmanned systems, intelligent unmanned systems will continue to develop standardized command and control frameworks in the future, improve the intelligence of human-machine collaboration, and improve the modularity of the system. It is mainly reflected in:
① Developing a general artificial intelligence framework to support autonomous, precise, and real-time good coupling and collaboration between humans and machines; ② Improving the modularity and component interchangeability of intelligent unmanned systems to support rapid maintenance and configuration upgrades of intelligent unmanned systems and their members in future battlefields; ③ Improving the level of data transmission integration and the anti-interference capability of data transmission on future battlefields to reduce the rate of data interception.
⒌ Cross-domain collaboration breaks the boundaries of cluster applications
In order to improve the adaptability of intelligent unmanned systems in highly complex environments and solve the problem of uncertain boundaries during combat, it is necessary to improve the cross-domain collaborative combat capabilities of intelligent unmanned systems to make up for the lack of capabilities in a single combat domain. Through the cross-domain collaborative combat of intelligent unmanned systems, the advantages of various components can be complemented. That is, by utilizing the advantages of large search range and long communication distance of air unmanned systems, as well as long endurance and strong stability of land unmanned systems and marine unmanned systems, the advantages of different components are combined to increase the multi-dimensional spatial information perception capabilities of intelligent unmanned systems, and form a heterogeneous multi-autonomous collaborative system, thereby improving the ability of intelligent unmanned systems to complete complex tasks.
⒍ Secure network guarantees reliable application of clusters Intelligent unmanned systems face the problems of incomplete information and high game confrontation on future battlefields. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the network security protection capabilities of intelligent unmanned systems in high confrontation environments, improve flexibility in dealing with highly complex and highly variable tasks, and improve stability in the face of high-intensity network attacks. The improvement of network security protection capabilities in adversarial environments is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
① Plan reasonable data permissions to ensure data security and flexibility of task execution; ② Improve information protection capabilities, develop and upgrade information protection products for intelligent unmanned systems, and record response decisions for information explosion situations; ③ Increase the network’s deep defense capabilities, unify network security standards and levels, build network defense autonomy, and improve the network’s ability to resist attacks under network attacks.
⒎ Human-machine hybrid intelligence improves adversarial capabilities In order to solve the problem of high real-time response faced on future battlefields and improve the adaptability of intelligent unmanned systems in highly complex environments, it is necessary to combine the advantages of humans and machines to form a new hybrid intelligent mode of human-machine collaboration, that is, to develop human-machine hybrid intelligence for intelligent unmanned systems. Human-machine hybrid intelligence of intelligent unmanned systems is a new intelligent scientific system that combines physics and biology in which human, machine, and environmental systems interact. In response to the problems of high-complexity environments and high real-time responses faced by intelligent unmanned systems on future battlefields, the development of human-machine hybrid intelligence in the future is mainly reflected in the following aspects: ① Information intelligence input. At the input end of information acquisition, the information data objectively collected by the sensors of the unmanned system equipment is combined with the subjective perception information of the combat commanders to form a multi-dimensional information acquisition and information input method. ② Intelligent information fusion. After obtaining multi-dimensional data information, a new data understanding method is constructed by integrating the computer’s calculation data with the information cognition of the combat commanders. ③ Intelligent information output. After the data information is fused and processed, the computer’s calculation results are matched with the value decisions of the combat commanders to form an organically combined probabilistic and regularized optimization judgment.
IV. Conclusion Due to its autonomy, intelligence and unmanned characteristics, intelligent unmanned systems will play an increasingly important role in the future battlefield. The development of intelligent unmanned systems will also drive the development of intelligent computing, intelligent transportation, intelligent manufacturing, smart medical care, brain-like science and other disciplines. In the future, we should be guided by the mission requirements of actual complex battlefield environments, combine advanced technologies in cutting-edge disciplines such as artificial intelligence, and make overall top-level planning for intelligent unmanned systems; verify reliable airborne intelligent perception and intelligent computing equipment on different unmanned system combat platforms in land, air and marine unmanned systems, and develop reliable and stable key technologies such as unmanned system autonomous control, intelligent perception, intelligent decision-making and intelligent interaction, overcome the key difficulties of intelligent unmanned systems, and continuously improve the autonomous control, intelligent perception and intelligent decision-making capabilities of intelligent unmanned systems.
Modern warfare is accelerating towards intelligence, and the key to victory has extended from “power advantage” and “information advantage” to “intelligence advantage”. Integrating artificial intelligence technology into the field of combat command and deeply coupling it with the command and control system will bring about a large number of systematic and systemic transformations and reshaping.
Intelligent situation perception, data promotes the continuous emergence of command capabilities. Unlike information-based command, which is the key to command, intelligent combat command emphasizes the comprehensive use of data, algorithms, and computing power. Data in the combat command chain can optimize the command process, accelerate the decision-making process, and multiply the command efficiency. In combat command under intelligent conditions, the hardware system will be closely combined with efficient algorithms and powerful computing power, which can achieve rapid situation perception and accurate situation judgment, continuously shorten the combat preparation cycle, promote the transformation from data advantage to decision-making advantage and action advantage, and promote the emergence of command capabilities.
Deep human-machine interaction and intelligent algorithms promote the improvement of command efficiency. Artificial intelligence technology is the product of the cross-integration of multiple technologies. Combat command under the background of intelligence will reconstruct the basic connotation of combat command with new elements represented by “cloud, network, terminal, and group”. Through the integrated application of technologies such as voice recognition, natural language processing, and human-computer interaction, the speed of information and command flow in each node and link of command can be accelerated, and the realization of intelligent platform control and intelligent system decision-making can be promoted, and the pressure of the command subject can be released, so that it can better respond to other emergencies, and provide intelligent solutions for improving command efficiency.
The competition for intellectual property rights is fierce, and artificial intelligence promotes innovation in command technology. Under the conditions of future information-based and intelligent warfare, the technological war between data, algorithms, and computing power will intensify, and the competition for intellectual property rights will also become more intense. In the field of combat command, big data and algorithms such as deep learning and enhanced learning will have a profound impact on the timeliness of situation perception, the level of human-computer interaction, and the quality and efficiency of simulation and evaluation. The party that masters advanced technology can make decisions and judgments faster than the enemy, implement response adjustments one step ahead of the enemy, and strike and damage one step ahead of the enemy, so as to achieve better, more accurate, more complete, and more detailed planning and deployment and dynamic control.
Manned and unmanned collaboration, mission-driven iterative development of command means. Unmanned combat forces shine in armed conflicts and have a profound impact on the course of combat. How to command and control this force is a problem that must be solved in combat command under the background of intelligence. Obviously, manned and unmanned collaborative combat will be a new style of intelligent warfare. In the process of manned and unmanned collaborative combat and unmanned swarms conducting autonomous combat, targeted adjustments and optimizations can be made to the command process, command system, command authority and responsibility, and command mechanism to adapt to the needs of intelligent development.
The system support is obvious, and the computing power guarantees the efficient operation of the command system. Modern warfare is a comprehensive comparison of systems and systems. The system interconnection of combat command under the background of intelligence is becoming more and more obvious, but there are many constituent elements, complex systems, and arduous computing tasks, and there is an urgent need for machine computing power adapted to provide power support. Through intelligent computing centers, cloud computing, edge computing, etc., the advantages of machine computing power can be fully utilized to support the efficient operation of the command and control platform, provide power guarantee for situation perception, target identification, mission planning, rapid strikes, etc., and provide effective support for “information power + mobility + control + strike power”.
President Xi Jinping stressed that in the new era and new journey, the world is undergoing a century-long transformation, the new military revolution is developing rapidly, and my country’s security and development needs are undergoing profound changes. It is more urgent to achieve the goal of strengthening the military, and we must comprehensively strengthen military theory work. To accelerate the formation of a military theory system that is contemporary, leading, and unique, we must expand our thinking horizons, strengthen military theory innovation, strive to seize the commanding heights of military theory innovation, and gain new advantages in military theory competition, and thus seize the initiative in the strategic game between major powers.
Reconstructing a pluralistic cognitive framework based on the characteristics of the war era
Since the 21st century, with the development of global politics, economy, culture, and science and technology, the characteristics of modern warfare have undergone profound changes. The system confrontation, spatial superposition, and multi-domain hybrid characteristics of the high-end war game between major powers have become more prominent. The war form is accelerating towards a highly dispersed force, highly circulated information, and highly coordinated actions. We urgently need to examine the driving force of the times for innovation in military theory.
The timeliness of the evolution of war forms. After combing through the development context from traditional warfare to modern warfare and comparing and analyzing it, we can find that the simple primitive form of “building a stronghold, fighting a stupid battle, and fighting in a group” has already moved towards multiple advanced forms such as multi-domain warfare and hybrid warfare. The war concept, combat system, tactics and fighting methods are all evolving continuously. The driving force of the times is the coupling effect of “technical background determines tactical quality, and tactical innovation forces technological innovation”. Against this background, future wars will present the three major characteristics of “full-domain linkage, intelligent dominance, and unmanned front”. In essence, it is a breakthrough in nonlinear state, an update of war philosophy, and even a super-dimensional power game. The driving force behind it is the endless emergence of new combat concepts. Military theory innovation must face the compound challenges of full-domain confrontation, hybrid competitive capabilities and technological breakthroughs. The core lies in building a new war concept that can break the constraints of thinking and achieve cross-domain victory.
The leading nature of military theory game. The game between major powers is a long-term process, in which the arms race is a traditional path of mutual game, while another emerging track is the military theory competition. First of all, military theory is the high-level logic of the game between major powers. The alternating evolution of leading, accompanying and follow-up military theories provides a blueprint for resource integration, training iteration and force optimization for the game between major powers. It also provides methods and strategies for restricting and cracking the opponent’s capabilities, which can accelerate the trend of the military system to win the battle. Secondly, with the continuous changes in the international situation and scientific and technological development, new contradictions, new problems, new goals and new threats continue to emerge, and the causes, subjects, forms, and scenarios of war and confrontation will be more complex, diverse and multi-domain integrated, and their performance will be more uncertain and nonlinear. Whoever can recognize the future war form and style and whoever has a rich concept of combat concepts can take the initiative in international games.
The deterrent effect of advanced military theories. Advanced military theories can coordinate existing war resources to the greatest extent through scientific theoretical design, and fully transform war potential into war power. Therefore, advanced military theories are both combat effectiveness that can win wars and deterrence that can deter wars. For example, people’s war is our magic weapon to defeat the enemy, which has been proven by war practice. For a long time after the founding of New China, imperialism and hegemonism did not dare to act rashly against our country. One important reason was that they were afraid of the power of our people’s war. In recent years, the form of war has accelerated its evolution towards intelligence, and new combat concepts of foreign armies have emerged in an endless stream. In the face of competition in military theory innovation on the “silent battlefield”, we must have insight into the new development of intelligent combat theory, examine the new changes in intelligent combat styles, and adhere to the principle of “you fight yours, I fight mine”. We must be good at creating advanced fighting methods to defeat the superior, and we must also be good at avoiding the real and attacking the virtual to attack the incapable, and innovate and develop theoretical deterrence with our own characteristics.
Promote cross-domain communication and integration, and deconstruct multi-dimensional innovation mechanisms
Modern warfare has broken through the boundaries of land, sea, air, space and power grids, proving the necessity of multi-domain linkage and multi-dimensional connection. In this vast military and even civilian field, the military theory innovation must integrate scientific and technological channels, build a strategic and tactical research and training platform, and seek breakthroughs from the innovation mechanism by gathering the best and releasing energy, integrating information, and integrating strikes.
The battlefield space is ubiquitous and multi-dimensionally reconstructed. The essence of battlefield space reconstruction is the breakthrough of technological civilization on physical boundaries, that is, when new technologies develop to a certain extent, the physical domain, information domain, social domain, etc. will present a reconstructed form. This reconstruction breaks the spatial limitations and time dimensions of the traditional battlefield, and deeply promotes the war confrontation from the centralized and linear physical space to the hyper-dimensional space of multi-domain integration and boundless linkage, which brings about the ubiquitous combat domain, all-encompassing combat elements, and all-encompassing combat forces, and will form a new combat form. This requires military theory to reconstruct the three-dimensionality, multi-dimensionality and linkage of modern warfare from the aspects of combat system, strategy and tactics, and node elements. Especially in the future, the mixed linkage of battlefield space such as politics, economy, military, and public opinion will bring about many sources of struggle, wide fields, and strong coupling. Military theory innovation needs to have a deep insight into the connotation and essential characteristics of the endogenous development of battlefield space, so as to reconstruct an autonomous, flexible, elastic, and closed-loop combat space and highlight the battlefield ecological mechanism of linkage and balance.
Reshaping of multi-layer technology nested structure. Modern warfare needs to integrate technical systems at different levels and in different fields to form a highly coordinated and dynamically adaptive combat system to cope with the complex needs of informatization, intelligence and precision. The huge combat system urgently needs to evolve from a single function to a systematized and networked one. The core lies in breaking the boundaries of traditional military services and equipment technology and building a multi-dimensional linkage technology ecosystem. For example, the strategic early warning system requires three-dimensional networking of space satellites, ground radars, underwater sonars, etc., that is, integration and nesting from the physical layer; the global battlefield perception network requires real-time data of space-based surveillance, air early warning, and ground reconnaissance, that is, fusion and interaction from the information layer; the joint global command and control system needs to complete target identification, threat assessment and target allocation within seconds, that is, intelligent decision-making from the cognitive layer. These cross-domain communication integrations force the deep reconstruction of the technical architecture, which in turn triggers the transformation of military organizations and actions. Technological innovation drives tactical breakthroughs, promotes the iteration of equipment systems and the reshaping of military theory systems, which is the secret of the innovation mechanism of military theory.
Cross-domain knowledge integration and cognitive reconstruction. Modern warfare has broken through the Clausewitzian “trinity” framework and presents the characteristics of quantum entanglement-style full-dimensional confrontation. For example, the US military’s “mosaic warfare” theory integrates AI and biological nerves to construct a dynamic and reconfigurable killing network. This requires that military theory innovation must have the ability of cross-domain deconstruction and cognitive reconstruction. This integration and reconstruction is not a simple superposition of knowledge, but a new dimension of understanding of war and a metacognitive system through the “emergence effect”. This requires breaking down disciplinary barriers and traditional thinking frameworks, integrating advanced technologies such as communications, navigation, detection, and quantum on the basis of cybernetics, information theory, and systems theory, and forming a knowledge ecosystem with its internal logic that can couple new tactics, combat systems, and war forms.
Create an open source theoretical ecosystem and form a distributed innovation pattern
With the development of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and multi-dimensional information, the development of military theory has shown an era trend of diversified innovation. If we can activate the innovation potential with an open source ecosystem, we may be able to develop a different innovation model for military theory from the existing ones – one that maintains the traditional background of military theory while also having the technological sharpness of the intelligent era. Its core lies in stimulating innovation through an open ecosystem, diversified cooperation, and localization.
Shaping an open source ecosystem. Traditional military theory research is highly confidential and exclusive, and inevitably has information barriers, thinking limitations, and technical gaps, which can no longer meet the needs of war development. The superiority, vitality, and professionalism shown by the open source big model inspire the world. The open source military theory ecosystem can also build an advanced basic military theory base through a controllable open sharing ecosystem of theoretical frameworks, tactical deductions, and technical solutions under the support of a hierarchical collaboration system and blockchain technology, and then derive concrete military theory plug-ins for operational concept trees, scenario sets, and style groups in various fields. Its ecological connotation lies in breaking departmental boundaries, integrating military units, scientific research institutes, local universities, social think tanks, etc., and using supply and demand announcement platforms, war game deduction platforms, information interaction platforms, etc. to form a closed-loop feedback environment of “theoretical crowd creation” with multi-party participation. This distributed collaborative ecology can accelerate the formation of theoretical innovation and iteration through the interaction between nodes, and achieve sustainable development advantages in a complex internal and external environment.
Integration of military democracy. In the process of military theory innovation, through a professional and efficient collective collaboration mechanism, scattered cognitive resources are transformed into collective combat effectiveness, forming cross-domain and cross-weapon collaboration. Its success depends on three fulcrums: an open resource organization structure, an efficient knowledge management mechanism, and a deep integration of science and technology. This innovation model reshapes the production process of modern military theory: breaking the vertical, closed, and minority participation characteristics of traditional military theory innovation, and forming a collaborative paradigm that includes sharing and competitive participation of multiple subjects. This means that military theory innovation has entered a new stage of “collective wisdom + knowledge transfer”. The key is to release innovation potential through a military democracy mechanism, and to enhance the system resilience of theoretical innovation while ensuring military effectiveness. The ultimate goal is to form a theoretical system that can both guide its own military practice and contribute to human war cognition.
Highlight its own characteristics. The “two combinations” are the fundamental way to promote the theoretical innovation of the Party. To strengthen the innovation of military theory, we must insist on combining the basic principles of Marxism with the practice of building the people’s army and absorbing the essence of China’s excellent traditional military culture. We should focus on using the “arrow” of truth to shoot the “target” of military practice in the new era, and innovate and develop military theory in the process of creatively applying Marxism to analyze and deal with contemporary Chinese military issues. We should focus on extracting rich nutrition from China’s excellent traditional military culture, absorbing the war concepts, military wisdom, strategic thinking, military tactics and strategies contained therein, and giving military theory distinct Chinese characteristics, Chinese style and Chinese style. In particular, we should focus on deeply integrating the laws of modern warfare and the laws of war guidance, the essence of China’s excellent traditional military culture and China’s national conditions and military conditions, forming a military theory generation system with autonomy, adaptability and foresight, and constantly opening up new horizons for the development of our military’s military theory.(Editors: Dai Xiaoling, Wan Peng)
In the era of intelligence, new scenarios and new forms such as digital twins and “human-machine intelligence” have emerged in large numbers and have been deeply applied in the military field, giving rise to a comprehensive upgrade of the war form. This upgrade is mainly manifested in the integration of combat forces, the operation mode of battlefield energy, and the dominant factors in the generation and release of combat power. Facing intelligent warfare, the organizational form of the military has accelerated its transformation and presented a new development trend.
Generate new system emergence
System science believes that when several interacting parts form a system in a certain way, they can produce new overall characteristics such as properties, characteristics, behaviors, functions, etc. that only the system as a whole has, but not the parts or the sum of the parts; and once the system is reduced to unrelated parts, these new overall characteristics will no longer exist. This characteristic that only the whole has, but the isolated parts and their sum do not have, is the overall emergence. In the confrontation of military systems in the intelligent era, emergence is mainly presented in two ways: one is the formation of swarm intelligence. That is, a single low-intelligence, relying on the group to form a high-intelligence collective behavior. This phenomenon is produced in a self-organized way after each individual in the system obeys local rules and continuously interacts. In recent years, supported by artificial intelligence technology, swarm intelligence has developed rapidly. In the military field, drone “swarm” tactics and unmanned boat “school of fish” tactics are typical applications in this regard. Another way is to form “human-machine” advanced intelligence. That is, through the effective combination and reliable operation of man and machine, a higher level of intelligence based on the “man-machine” combination is formed. This is a new intelligence that is higher than human intelligence, robots, and artificial intelligence.
In fact, the emergence phenomenon is not uncommon in human military activities, especially in military organizations with clear and stable operating rules and a strong sense of common goals and beliefs. An army with a highly consistent collective identity can play a reliable role in mutual support and self-organization and self-coordination in combat operations, and then burst out with new capabilities that far exceed the sum of the individual capabilities within the organization. Entering the era of intelligence, the system’s emergence has taken on new forms and connotations. An important trend in the transformation of the military’s organizational form is to promote the realization of highly autonomous “man-machine” collaboration by improving functional elements and setting up scientific structures, so that the entire system can burst out with new functions that are not possessed by the accumulation of elements.
Forming new intelligent bonding force
The prominent feature of information warfare is the formation of “information structural power”. That is, due to the embedding of information platforms, the information chain movement based on information systems, data chains, and sensors has broken the originally closed and separated state between combat elements, allowing the military system to form a new structure and trigger a nonlinear leap in combat power. On the information battlefield, people and weapons, weapons and weapons, people and platforms, etc., all rely on information systems to establish effective connections to achieve efficient flow of data and information. The effectiveness of commanders in investigating the situation and judging the enemy has been greatly improved, and the realization method and iteration rhythm of command intentions have undergone a qualitative leap. This revolution in the interactive method from sensors to shooters is ultimately reflected in the overall upgrade of the combat power of the military system and combat system.
Entering the era of intelligence, the connotation of “information structural power” has undergone a fundamental change. Based on the widespread use of artificial intelligence technologies such as big data and big models, problems such as “information redundancy” and “decision-making delays” that have troubled commanders in the information age have been alleviated. The “cloud brain” decision-making and planning, the “human-machine” coordination of command and control, and the automation of action coordination have made the overall intelligence of the entire combat system higher. The reason why new models and methods such as “autonomous decision-making”, “order-based coordination” and “unmanned strikes” can be realized is the result of “wisdom” empowerment on the intelligent battlefield. The effective “glue” from the integration of several unit intelligent agents into a consensus-based, large-scale comprehensive intelligent agent is a higher level of intelligent bonding. To accelerate the transformation of the military’s organizational structure, we must establish scientific working and driving mechanisms on the basis of improving its structure and functions, build an autonomous, intelligent and efficient system link, allow the vitality of all combat power elements to compete and burst forth, and allow all sources of the military’s modernization to flow fully.
Reflecting the overall new quality of combat capability
New-quality combat power is a brand-new combat capability that is fundamentally supported by new-quality combat forces and is different from traditional combat capabilities in terms of mechanism, logic, and generation method. Therefore, simply designating a certain type of force as a new-quality force does not necessarily lead to the formation of new-quality combat capabilities. Just like using rifles as cold weapons, large combat platforms as vehicles, and network forces for attacking and defending cities, although from the external appearance, the elements of combat force composition and personnel ratios have changed greatly, the way people interact with weapons, the way weapons are used, and the way unit combat power is generated and released have not changed in essence, and they are far from being called new-quality combat power.
New quality combat power comes from the new combat capability of new combat forces, from the effective integration of a series of new combat capabilities, and from the new capabilities generated by the integration and innovation of new capabilities. Whether comprehensive and systematic new quality combat power can be generated is an important criterion for judging whether the modernization of organizational form for intelligent warfare is effective. To accelerate the transformation of the organizational form of the military, it is necessary to generate new “information structure power” within the military system through the optimization of system structure, operation mechanism, and energy form, and then use it to emerge a new and revolutionary system combat power.
Give full play to the structural frame support
Structure determines function. In engineering structures, the structural framework mainly refers to the key support for the balance of the beam-column system and the stability of the structure. This concept is transferred to organizational form management, and is mainly used to describe the link relationship and the action space for the effective interaction of various elements in the military organization. To give full play to the structural framework support of the organizational form involves two aspects: static support and dynamic support. The so-called static support is to focus on forming a scientific military organization force structure and to set up a scientific military organization structural framework as much as possible. It involves the scientific configuration of various elements in the combat power system, which is specifically manifested in three aspects. The first is the ratio of combat elements and force units. For example, the composition ratio of the military services in the combat system, or the ratio of military services, the ratio of offense and defense, the ratio of personnel and equipment, etc. The second is the distribution of combat elements and force units. It mainly refers to the scientific deployment of combat forces on the battlefield, the distribution and configuration of various combat elements within the troops, and the evolution and development of the battlefield situation. The third is the hierarchical setting and morphological design of the system. Including the hierarchy of the army, the level of integration, the command system, the command method, etc. Dynamic support emphasizes that the structural support of an organization is also a specific organizational operational capability, including the ability of the military organization to operate efficiently and exert its effectiveness under the established configuration framework, and also the ability of the organization to quickly adapt and respond to changes in the external environment and adjustments in internal needs. This capability is more reflected in the macro governance structure, business process system, talent team and resources of the military organization. To accelerate the transformation of the military organization’s form, it is necessary to lay the foundation for the effective interaction of various elements in the organization and the realization of organizational functions by building a scientific and reasonable framework structure.
Improve autonomous iterative growth
Autonomous iterative growth capability refers to the ability of military organizations to achieve orderly development and active growth through active and continuous self-adjustment and optimization in the face of ever-changing war situations, external environments, and competitive pressures. The diversity and integration of combat power, the sequentiality and integration of combat power generation, and the jointness and nonlinearity of combat power release all put forward new and higher requirements for the autonomous iterative growth capability of military organizations. First, we must have a keen ability to perceive the environment. We must be able to detect defects or shortcomings in a timely manner, accurately judge the problems and risks that may result, and scientifically determine the timing and methods of intervention; second, we must have reliable innovation and correction capabilities. The ability to face problems with an open mind, analyze problems with effective mechanisms, and study problems with innovative ideas, and then propose feasible, reliable and highly consensus-based correction plans; third, the ability to execute efficiently. The ability to achieve the specific goals of evolutionary correction with full enthusiasm and high consensus, and to promote growth and optimization with a proactive attitude, so that each individual can implement with full trust when facing innovative and revolutionary adjustments. Facing the future intelligent warfare, promoting the transformation of the military organization is to focus on improving the iterative growth capability of the military organization. In the whole process of promoting the construction of institutional mechanisms, force structures and legal systems, we should simultaneously think about building a scientific consultation and evaluation mechanism for major decisions, building a sound supervision, feedback and correction mechanism, forming a benign innovation incentive mechanism, and promptly dealing with key and difficult issues with a dynamic perspective and a development vision.
In short, the transformation of the military organization is a process of adapting to the development of technology, following the development of the war form, actively optimizing and innovating the combat power form, and constantly liberating and developing combat power. The advanced military organization form should include static contents such as “appearance” and “structure”, and on this basis, it should effectively streamline business processes, improve operating mechanisms, and stimulate organizational dynamics, so that the military organization can achieve comprehensive transformation and transformation in terms of structure, mechanism, function, etc., and fully adapt to the requirements of the era of future intelligent warfare.
(Author’s unit: College of Military Management, National Defense University)
Source: China Military Network – People’s Liberation Army Daily Author: Zhou Hui Editor: Sun Zhiying Release: 2024-06-18 07:xx:xx
China Military Network Ministry of National Defense Network
Friday , August 13, 2021
Since the 21st century, global scientific and technological innovation has entered an unprecedented period of intensive activity. A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reshaping the global innovation landscape and reshaping the global economic structure. Some people therefore call the current era the era of “deep technology”.
The military field is the most sensitive to technological change. At present, some major disruptive technologies are constantly emerging, showing a trend of cross-integration and group leaps. Their military applications will bring about sudden and revolutionary consequences, and even bring about a new form of war.
Artificial Intelligence: Opening the Door to Intelligent Warfare
Artificial intelligence was born in 1956. Its essence is to simulate the human thinking process, that is, to make machines understand, think and learn like humans, form experience, and generate a series of corresponding judgments and processing methods. In the past 10 years, with the continuous development of new theories and technologies such as big data, neural networks, and deep learning, artificial intelligence has pressed the fast-forward button and started to develop rapidly, bringing fundamental changes to all areas of human society.
In 2016, the artificial intelligence program AlphaGo defeated the world Go champion Lee Sedol. By 2020, the latest algorithmic programs can teach themselves to play Go, chess and other games without even being told the rules of the game.
As a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, the application of artificial intelligence in the military field has accelerated the transformation of warfare from informationization to intelligence. This transformation will be full-dimensional and full-spectrum, involving almost all links in the military chain. The most prominent impacts basically include the following aspects:
——Assisting unmanned combat. The rapid development of artificial intelligence will greatly enhance the collaborative and autonomous combat capabilities of various unmanned combat systems. This will undoubtedly promote structural changes in the composition of combat forces, and unmanned combat mode will gradually become the “main theme” of war. In a simulated confrontation in August 2020, an intelligent system funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency controlled a fighter jet and defeated experienced air force pilots. The trend of unmanned combat seems to be increasingly unstoppable.
——Reshape command and control. Complex adaptive systems supported by artificial intelligence, such as swarm systems, will have increasingly strong self-organizing capabilities, thereby breaking the traditional strict hierarchical command system and incubating a new command and control model. The action control of a swarm composed of thousands of unmanned systems will be completed by an intelligent and efficient algorithm system, which can achieve a high degree of decentralization and dynamic aggregation, demonstrating a new concept of group intelligent combat.
——Achieve intelligent decision-making. That is, generate intelligent evaluation and auxiliary decision-making capabilities, realize automatic generation, dynamic optimization, and real-time adjustment of combat plans, and enable combat planning to flexibly adapt to changes in the mission environment and battlefield uncertainties. At present, the new generation of artificial intelligence technology is in a stage of vigorous development, and new technologies will continue to emerge.
Quantum technology: writing the winning code in “entanglement”
Quantum is the smallest, indivisible unit of energy. The biggest feature of quantum technology is that it can break through the physical limits of existing information technology, play a huge role in information processing speed, information capacity, information security, information detection accuracy, etc., and thus significantly improve human ability to obtain, transmit and process information, providing strong impetus for the evolution and development of the future information society.
Quantum theory has gone through more than a hundred years of development since its birth. The development of quantum technology has directly given rise to modern information technology. Nuclear energy, semiconductor transistors, lasers, nuclear magnetic resonance, high-temperature superconducting materials, etc. have come into being, changing human production and life. In recent years, the continuous combination of quantum mechanics and information technology will usher in a new quantum technology revolution, impacting the traditional technology system and even causing the reconstruction of the traditional technology system.
Compared with the macroscopic physical world, quantum has many wonderful properties, the most representative of which are quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. Quantum superposition means that a quantum can be in different states at the same time, and can be in a superposition of these states. A vivid metaphor is the cat in a state of “both dead and alive” imagined by physicist Schrödinger. Quantum entanglement means that independent particles can be completely “entangled” together. No matter how far apart they are, when the state of one quantum changes, the other will change accordingly like “telepathy”.
These special properties of quantum contain great military potential. In quantum detection, quantum communication, quantum imaging, quantum computing, etc., they are gradually showing great military application value. For example, by taking advantage of the characteristics of quantum state superposition and the inability to accurately copy unknown quantum states, quantum codes that cannot be deciphered can be developed.
In addition, based on the characteristics of quantum entanglement, the high correlation between two microscopic particles with a common source can be utilized, and entangled photons can be used as light sources to achieve quantum imaging, which can greatly improve the resolution and anti-interference ability of imaging.
Gene technology: a new weapon that can be “edited”
Genes are the genetic information that controls various characteristics of organisms and are known as the “master switch” of various life activities of organisms. Gene editing is equivalent to a pair of “gene scissors”, which can accurately achieve gene “modification” such as insertion, removal, and replacement of specific target genes of organisms, thereby achieving control over the genetic information of organisms.
In 2012, researchers from the United States and Sweden found a very effective pair of “gene scissors”, namely the CRISPR/Cas9 system, which can cut any genome at any desired location. Since then, the development of gene editing technology has achieved unprecedented “acceleration”, realizing gene editing of fruit flies, mice, pigs, sheep, rice, wheat and other organisms, and also providing new medical means for treating diseases such as tumors, AIDS, and thalassemia.
While genetic technology is gradually unlocking the mysteries of life, it will also cause unpredictable military security issues. If gene editing is used in the development of biological weapons, it means that developers can modify genes to obtain new pathogenic microorganisms according to their own needs, or implant biological gene fragments with different characteristics and transform existing biological warfare agents, or even artificially design and synthesize new viruses that do not exist in nature. These may produce new biological weapons that humans cannot prevent and control, and even use the precision of genetic technology to make attacks more targeted. This new coronavirus epidemic has made the world suspicious of Fort Detrick and more than 200 American overseas biological experimental bases. The United States should disclose more facts and give an explanation to the international community.
Brain science: heading towards the battlefield of “brain control”
The human brain is a highly complex information processing system that consists of billions of neurons that communicate with each other and complete a variety of cognitive tasks in an overall coordinated manner.
The brain’s complex neural information processing and cognition are so complex that even supercomputers pale in comparison. Therefore, brain science research is regarded as the “ultimate frontier” of natural science research, and the International Brain Research Organization believes that the 21st century is the “era of brain science.”
In recent years, major countries in the world have announced the launch of brain science research programs. With the emergence of new imaging technologies, convergence technologies, and computing and information communication technology platforms, brain science research has made new breakthroughs in the fields of neural circuits, brain-like intelligence, and brain-computer interfaces.
As a branch of cognitive science, the “brain-computer interface” technology was born in the 1970s. It collects the EEG signals generated by the activity of the cerebral cortex nervous system, and converts them into signals that can be recognized by computers through methods such as amplification and filtering, so that external devices can read the brain’s neural signals, identify people’s true intentions, and achieve effective control of external physical devices. In other words, a certain operation is performed by the human brain without the need to complete it through the body.
As a new type of human-computer interaction, brain-computer interface technology provides a new intelligent development direction for the control of weapons and equipment. Realizing the direct control of weapons and equipment by the human brain and giving them the intelligent features of “moving at will” are becoming the goals pursued by Western military powers. In 2013, the US Department of Defense disclosed a research project called “Avatar”, which plans to control remote “machine warriors” through thoughts in the future to replace soldiers in the battlefield and carry out various combat tasks.
If the above research is regarded as “brain control”, then the use of “brain-computer interface” and other technical means to interfere with, destroy or even control people’s neural activities and thinking abilities is the so-called “brain control”. For example, electromagnetic waves and sound waves are used to affect the normal activities of human brain cells, and even suggestions and commands are directly “projected” into the human brain. In March 2018, a Western country proposed the “Next Generation Non-Invasive Neurotechnology (N3)” plan to develop a new generation of non-invasive two-way brain-computer interfaces to further improve the high-level interaction capabilities of soldiers and weapons and equipment.
In the future, the rapid development of brain science will give rise to a new cognitive domain combat model centered on the brain, and “brain control” will also become a new battlefield for the competition in the cognitive domain.
At present, a new round of scientific and technological revolution and military revolution is in a “qualitative change period”. Science and technology have never had such a profound impact on national security and military strategy as today. In the face of the rapid development of science and technology, we must vigorously enhance our scientific and technological cognition and acumen, strive to seize the commanding heights of science and technology, seek military competitive advantages, and seize the initiative in future wars.
Professor Liu Yangyue from the College of Arts and Sciences at the National University of Defense Technology
With the advent of the “smart +” era, artificial intelligence is widely used in the military field, and conventional warfare in physical space and cognitive confrontation in virtual space are accelerating integration. Deeply tapping the potential of artificial intelligence to empower cognitive confrontation is of great significance to improving the efficiency of cross-domain resource matching and controlling the initiative in future operations.
Data mining expands the boundaries of experience and cognition
Data-driven, knowing the enemy and knowing yourself. With the advancement of big data-related technologies, data information has become cognitive offensive and defensive ammunition, and information advantage has become increasingly important on the battlefield. Empowering traditional information processing processes with artificial intelligence technology can enhance the ability to analyze related information, accelerate information integration across domains through cross-domain data collection and false information screening, and enhance dynamic perception capabilities. Artificial intelligence can also help alleviate battlefield data overload, organically integrate enemy information, our own information, and battlefield environment information, and build a holographic intelligent database to provide good support for cognitive confrontation.
Everything is connected intelligently, and humans and machines collaborate. Modern warfare is increasingly integrated between the military and civilians, and the boundaries between peace and war are blurred. Technology has redefined the way people interact with each other, people with equipment, and equipment with equipment, and battlefield data is constantly flowing. Through big data mining and cross-domain comparative analysis, unstructured data such as images, audio, and video can be refined, and the truth can be retained to expand the boundaries of experience cognition and improve the level of human-machine collaboration. The in-depth application of the Internet of Things and big data technologies has promoted the continuous improvement of the intelligent level of data acquisition, screening, circulation, and processing processes, laying a solid foundation for the implementation of cognitive domain precision attacks.
Break through barriers and achieve deep integration. Relying on battlefield big data can effectively break through the barriers of full-domain integration, help connect isolated information islands, promote cross-domain information coupling and aggregation, accelerate barrier-free information flow, and promote the transformation of data fusion and information fusion to perception fusion and cognitive fusion. The comprehensive penetration of intelligent equipment into the command system can accelerate the deep integration of situation awareness, situation prediction and situation shaping, optimize multi-dimensional information screening and cognitive confrontation layout, and promote the continuous iteration and upgrading of cognitive domain combat styles.
Accelerate decision-making and cause confusion to the enemy. The outcome of cognitive confrontation depends to a certain extent on the game of commanders’ wisdom and strategy. Through full-dimensional cross-domain information confrontation and decision-making games, with the help of intelligent technology, we can analyze and intervene in the opponent’s cognition and behavior, and finally gain the initiative on the battlefield. At present, artificial intelligence has become a catalyst for doubling combat effectiveness. In peacetime, it can play the role of an intelligent “blue army” to simulate and deduce combat plans; in wartime, through intelligent decision-making assistance, it can improve the quality and efficiency of the “detection, control, attack, evaluation, and protection” cycle, create chaos for the enemy, and paralyze its system.
Autonomous planning and intelligent formation. In the future intelligent battlefield, “face-to-face” fighting will increasingly give way to “key-to-key” offense and defense. In cognitive domain operations, the use of intelligent algorithms to accurately identify identity information, pre-judge the opponent’s intentions, and control key points in advance can quickly transform information advantages into decision-making advantages and action advantages. Using intelligent algorithms to support cognitive domain operations can also help identify the weaknesses of the enemy’s offense and defense system, autonomously plan combat tasks according to the “enemy”, intelligently design combat formations, and provide real-time feedback on combat effects. Relying on data links and combat clouds to strengthen intelligent background support, we can strengthen combat advantages in dynamic networking and virtual-real interaction.
Make decisions before the enemy and attack with precision. Intelligent algorithms can assist commanders in predicting risks, dynamically optimizing combat plans according to the opponent’s situation, and implementing precise cognitive attacks. In future intelligent command and control, the “cloud brain” can be used to provide algorithm support, combined with intelligent push to predict the situation one step ahead of the enemy, make decisions one step faster than the enemy, and completely disrupt the opponent’s thinking and actions. We should focus on using intelligent technology to collect and organize, deeply analyze the opponent’s decision-making and behavioral preferences, and then customize plans to actively induce them to make decisions that are beneficial to us, aiming at the key points and unexpectedly delivering a fatal blow to them.
Powerful computing power improves the overall operation level
Plan for the situation and create momentum, and suppress with computing power. “He who wins before the battle has more calculations; he who loses before the battle has less calculations.” The situation of cognitive confrontation is complex and changeable, and it is difficult to deal with it only by relying on the experience and temporary judgment of commanders. Intelligent tools can be used to strengthen the penetration of enemy thinking before the battle, actively divide and disintegrate the cognitive ability of the enemy team, and improve our battlefield control ability and combat initiative. At the same time, we should use powerful intelligent computing power to improve flexible command and overall planning capabilities, take advantage of the situation, build momentum, and actively occupy the main position of cognitive confrontation.
Smart soft attack, computing power raid. The rapid development of artificial intelligence has promoted the transformation of war from “hard destruction” to “soft killing”, which is expected to completely subvert the traditional war paradigm. For example, the latest technical concepts can be used to gain in-depth insights into the operating mechanism of the enemy system, actively familiarize oneself with the opponent, and mobilize the opponent. It is also possible to use the psychological anchoring effect and the network superposition amplification effect to interfere with the opponent’s cognitive loop link, disrupt the opponent’s command decision-making, and slow down the opponent’s reaction speed.
Cross-domain coordination and computing power support. To win the proactive battle of cognitive confrontation, we must coordinate across domains, gather forces in multiple dimensions, use intelligent tools to autonomously control the flow of information, realize the integrated linkage of physical domain, information domain and cognitive domain, lead forward-looking deployment and distributed coordination, launch a comprehensive parallel offensive, and form cognitive control over the enemy. Effectively carry out joint actions of virtual and real interaction in the entire domain, intervene in the enemy’s cognition, emotions and will, and use powerful computing power to take the initiative and fight proactive battles.
China Military Network Ministry of National Defense Network
In recent years, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology and its widespread application in the military field, the form of war and combat style have been constantly changing. Some foreign academic articles believe that artificial intelligence is reshaping the form of combat forces, enhancing the effectiveness of combat systems, improving the effectiveness of combat command, and improving the quality of combat coordination, promoting profound changes in combat activities.
Reshaping the combat force
These academic articles point out that combat forces are mainly composed of combat personnel, weapons and equipment, and organizational structures, and are undergoing tremendous changes under the influence of artificial intelligence technology.
From the perspective of personnel structure, with the widespread application of artificial intelligence technology and related equipment systems in the military field, the demand for professionals with the ability to develop, manage, use and maintain artificial intelligence technology has increased significantly, and the proportion of technical personnel in combat forces will continue to increase. Frontline combat personnel are no longer just direct operators of weapons, but are gradually transforming into battlefield monitors, system commanders and key decision makers in human-machine collaborative operations, and the requirements for their scientific and technological literacy and information processing capabilities have been greatly improved.
From the perspective of the equipment system, intelligent weapons and equipment such as drones, unmanned combat vehicles, and intelligent missiles will appear in large numbers and become an important part of the equipment system. These equipment are highly accurate and flexible, with stronger autonomous combat capabilities, and can independently complete tasks such as reconnaissance and strikes, greatly changing the traditional equipment structure and combat mode. In addition, traditional weapons and equipment will also accelerate intelligent transformation by adding intelligent sensors, communication modules, and automatic control systems, so as to have the ability to interconnect and cooperate with artificial intelligence systems. For example, old tanks can be upgraded and transformed to realize functions such as automatic driving, automatic aiming, and intelligent ammunition loading, thereby improving overall combat effectiveness.
From the perspective of combat unit formation, unmanned combat systems will gradually develop from auxiliary combat forces to independent combat units and organize them, relying on their unique advantages in high-risk and high-intensity combat environments. Research reports from some think tanks in Western countries believe that drone swarm combat forces and unmanned combat vehicle battalions will become common combat formations, which can complete a variety of tasks such as reconnaissance and surveillance, intelligence analysis, and firepower strikes. In order to give full play to the respective advantages of artificial intelligence and human warriors, human-machine mixed formations will also become the main form of future combat forces. In this formation, human warriors and intelligent weapons and equipment work closely together to complete combat missions.
Enhance combat system effectiveness
Judging from the evolution trend, intelligent technology will integrate unmanned equipment across domains and empower traditional combat platforms, and will become the “enabler” of future system warfare.
At present, many military experts in Western countries believe that artificial intelligence can conduct a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of various elements of the combat system, identify weak links and optimization space in the system, and provide a scientific basis for the construction and adjustment of the combat system. By optimizing the structure and function of the combat system, the overall effectiveness and stability of the combat system can be improved, making it more competitive when facing a changing battlefield environment and a powerful combat system.
During the combat process, artificial intelligence can analyze the combat systems of both sides in real time, predict the opponent’s possible actions and weaknesses, propose targeted system confrontation strategies, and continuously adjust and optimize according to the actual situation in the combat process to achieve efficient operation of one’s own combat system and improve the quality and effectiveness of combat system confrontation.
Western militaries believe that based on the advantages of artificial intelligence empowerment, they can greatly enhance security risk defense capabilities. By automatically predicting, identifying, discovering, and handling complex security risks, they can autonomously protect personnel, equipment, and materials from various attacks, improve all-domain and all-round defense capabilities, and ensure the safety and stability of the combat system.
Improving combat command effectiveness
At present, artificial intelligence has been deeply integrated into all aspects of combat command, affecting the external manifestations and main activities of combat command. Human-machine intelligent fusion control supported by artificial intelligence technology will become the basic form of combat action control.
Some foreign research institutions have found that artificial intelligence systems can quickly analyze the situation based on real-time battlefield situations and a large amount of historical data, generate multiple combat plans, and timely deduce and evaluate plans, adjust and optimize actions, provide commanders with more scientific and reasonable decision-making suggestions, and efficiently guide the execution of plans, so that combat planning can keep up with the rapidly changing battlefield rhythm. Especially when facing rapidly changing battlefield situations, it can help commanders make accurate judgments more quickly.
With the continuous development of artificial intelligence technology, some intelligent combat systems have a certain degree of autonomous decision-making capabilities. In certain situations, such as facing sudden threats or the temporary appearance of fighter jets, combat command systems assisted by artificial intelligence can make decisions and take actions autonomously within the preset rules and authority range, shorten the decision-making chain, and improve the response speed and flexibility of combat. When the combat terminal has stronger intelligent autonomy, it can even realize the self-generation, self-evaluation, and self-adjustment of combat plans, breaking through the limitations of human reaction capabilities and forming a more adaptive combat command.
Many experiments have proved that based on the accumulation of massive combat data and the enhancement of big data analysis technology, artificial intelligence technology can accurately calculate the entire process of combat planning under simulation conditions, helping commanders to accurately analyze the situation in advance, comprehensively judge trends, and reasonably plan trends. Then, through combat simulation, simulation and deduction, etc., it can virtually carry out activities such as calculation of combat force requirements and optimization of tactics and actions. In the planning process, it can scientifically and dynamically adjust combat plan strategies to form the best option, provide more reliable reference basis for combat command, and improve the accuracy of command and control.
Improve the quality of combat coordination
As artificial intelligence technology is deeply integrated into the combat system, the responsiveness of various combat elements on the battlefield continues to improve, the response time is gradually shortened, the adaptability level is gradually enhanced, and the quality of combat coordination is continuously improved.
Some military experts in Western countries believe that the battlefield of the future will be cross-domain, networked, and nonlinear. Artificial intelligence can break the boundaries between various combat domains and combat elements through efficient algorithms, making the coordination between different combat forces closer and more efficient. Based on artificial intelligence technology, autonomous coordination and cooperation between manned and unmanned combat forces can be achieved, so that manned and unmanned combat forces can complement each other and complement each other, significantly improving combat effectiveness. Moreover, the application of unmanned combat systems is becoming more and more extensive. Artificial intelligence technology can perform cluster control and collaborative management of a large number of unmanned combat platforms, achieve efficient coordination and task allocation between them, and improve the overall effectiveness and safety of unmanned combat.
China Military Network Ministry of National Defense Network
Source: China Military Network-People’s Liberation Army Daily Author: Yang Lianzhen Editor-in-charge: Yang Fanfan
2022-04-22 06:42
Combat management is the foundation for winning modern wars and the core of the modern combat system. It is the planning, organization, coordination and control of personnel, equipment, information, resources, time and space and other elements during the combat process.
Combat management system refers to the command information system used to support combat management activities, including intelligence collection, information transmission, target identification, threat assessment, weapon allocation, mission planning, etc. It has gradually developed with the evolution of war and technological progress.
Combat Management System: The Core of Modern Combat System
Schematic diagram of the combat management system
Past and present life
Implementing timely and accurate command and control of combat operations and making timely and decisive combat decisions are the goals and dreams that commanders have always pursued in different war periods. Before the emergence of scientific management, there was no concept of combat management in war, and naturally there was no combat management system. However, simple combat management activities and systems have always been associated with war and developed in an integrated manner.
The core of combat management is to ensure that commanders and troops can exchange information and instructions smoothly. In the ancient combat command system, gongs, drums, and flags were called the “three officials”. “When words cannot be heard, gongs and drums are used; when sight cannot be seen, flags are used.” Sight and hearing are the primitive means of command and control.
After the invention of the telegraph, telephone, and radio, long-distance and rapid transmission of combat orders and combat information became a reality, and the scope of combat management shifted from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. The war decision-making of “planning and winning thousands of miles away” is no longer a myth. Of course, traditional battlefield management methods are not completely ineffective. For example, in the Korean War, due to limited communication conditions, our army still used bugles to transmit combat orders to the company and below, and there were more than 20 types of bugle calls related to combat. “The sound of bugles from all sides rose up,” and the bugles on the Korean battlefield once frightened the US military. Ridgway wrote in his memoirs: “As soon as it sounded, the Chinese Communist Army would rush towards the coalition forces as if it were under a spell. At this time, the coalition forces were always beaten back like a tide.”
At the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of scientific management gradually gained popularity, and the military quickly applied it to combat. The term “combat management” first appeared in the US Air Force, where combat managers provided long-range target indication and voice guidance to fighters based on radar detection. The core combat organization is called the BM/C3 system, namely Battle Management and Command, Control, and Communication. In 1946, the first electronic computer “ENIAC” was successfully developed, and the military began to use computers to store and process various data related to combat. In 1958, the US military built the world’s first semi-automated combat management system-the “Seqi” air defense command and control system, which used computers to realize the automation of part of the information collection, processing, transmission and command decision-making process for the first time. In the same year, the Soviet Army built the “Sky No. 1” semi-automated air defense command and control system. Combat management systems began to appear on the war stage, and human-machine collaborative decision-making gradually became the main form of combat decision-making for commanders. During the “Rolling Thunder” campaign of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military commanded more than 5,000 aircraft to dispatch 1.29 million sorties and dropped 7.75 million tons of bombs, which would have been impossible to achieve by manual command alone.
The combat management system has gone through weapon-centered, platform-centered, network-centered, and system-centered construction stages, and has gradually been able to receive and process information from sensors and other sources in multiple domains, perceive and generate combat situation maps in real time, automatically implement command and control of troops and equipment, and intelligently assist commanders in making decisions, involving the army, navy, air force and other military services.
For example, the Israeli Army’s “Ruler” combat management system uses a single-soldier digital device to connect to a channel state information device to provide real-time situational awareness and command and control information for troops performing tactical operations and fire support. The U.S. Navy’s “Aegis” combat system uses a multi-task signal processor to integrate air defense and anti-missile capabilities, and realizes the integration of shipborne phased array radars, command decisions, and weapon control. The NATO Air Force’s ACCSLOC1 system, based on network distributed deployment, integrates 40 types of radars and more than 3,000 physical interfaces, and undertakes air operations such as mission planning, combat command, and combat supervision. From the launch of the first Gulf War to the Libyan War, the time from sensor information acquisition to firing by the U.S. military has been shortened from 24 hours to 2.5 minutes.
Features
The combat management system is a rapidly developing and constantly improving distributed operating system. It mainly collects and processes sensor data, facilitates the transmission and integration of various types of information, conducts situation identification and prediction, generates combat plans, completes action evaluation and selection, and issues combat orders to weapon platforms and shooters. Its essence is to achieve an efficient combat “observation-judgment-decision-action” cycle (OODA loop).
The combat management system widely uses situation assessment and prediction, combat space-time analysis, online real-time planning, combat resource management and control, and combat management engine technologies, and adopts a “cloud + network + terminal” technical architecture based on information technology.
For example, the U.S. military took the lead in using information technology to build a C4ISR system that integrates command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, laying the foundation for the combat management system. In the Afghanistan War, the C4ISR system achieved near-real-time transmission of combat information to combat platforms for the first time. With the continuous maturity of sensors, networks and artificial intelligence, technologies such as intelligent situation understanding and prediction, intelligent information push, intelligent task planning, intelligent collaborative control, intelligent rapid reconstruction and intelligent parallel command and control are having an increasingly significant impact on combat management systems.
Combat management systems usually support functions such as situational awareness, mission planning, engagement management, communications, modeling, simulation and analysis, and test training. For example, a missile defense combat management system mainly includes command and control, engagement management, and communications. The command and control function enables pre-battle combat planning and battlefield situation awareness; the engagement management function enables auxiliary combat decision-making, allocation of anti-missile weapons, and completion of strike missions; and the communication function enables the transmission and sharing of intelligence and data among the anti-missile units in the system.
The combat management system is an open and complex system. The structure determines the function. Different system structures determine the functional expansion of different systems: the ship’s self-defense combat management system enables the ship to have a strong self-defense capability through automated weapon control regulations, collaborative engagement management systems and tactical data links; the electromagnetic combat management system improves the planning, sharing and mobility of the electromagnetic spectrum by integrating and displaying battlefield electromagnetic spectrum data; the individual combat system enhances the soldier’s mobility, support, lethality and survivability by integrating individual protection, individual combat weapons and individual communication equipment.
Combat management systems generally have the characteristics of integration, automation, optimization, and real-time. The combat mode of modern warfare is complex and the battlefield scale is expanding. The requirements for force control, resource integration, and task scheduling have increased, and system integration must be achieved. The French Army’s “Scorpion” system fully integrates tanks, armored vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, drones, and attack helicopters into the same combat group, and links all platforms and combat units in the task group.
With the increase of combat elements in modern warfare and the expansion of battlefield perception space, the command automation system that relies heavily on people can no longer fully adapt, and the system must be automated. All operating functions of Pakistan’s combat management artillery control system are fully automated, “providing an automated solution for preparing, coordinating, transmitting, executing and modifying fire support plans and firing plans.”
The pace of modern warfare is accelerating and battlefield data is massive. It is necessary to quickly grasp the situation and make decisions efficiently, and it is necessary to achieve system optimization decision-making. Military powers are combining artificial intelligence, cloud computing, the Internet of Things and big data technologies to facilitate faster decision-making in multi-domain operations.
Future Development
Traditional combat management systems place more emphasis on pre-established engagement sequences and combat rules. However, future wars will emphasize the confrontation between systems, and it is impossible to exhaust all situations in advance. The battlefield information that needs to be mastered is also becoming more complex and massive. For this reason, the armies of various countries have begun to abandon the traditional method of developing combat management systems for each combat domain separately, and are network-centric and supported by artificial intelligence, trying to help commanders make combat decisions more quickly and realize real-time connection between sensors in each combat domain and any shooter.
The combat management system will promote the implementation of combat concepts. The “Advanced Combat Management System” developed by the US Air Force plans to connect all military services and their weapon platforms in real time in a military Internet of Things. Its core is to seamlessly link various intelligence reconnaissance platforms, command and control platforms, strike platforms and combat management platforms with various cross-domain capabilities, convert intelligence and target indication data into timely and usable information, shorten the “discovery-positioning-tracking-targeting-strike-assessment” cycle, and execute combat operations at a speed that opponents cannot keep up. The Russian military proposed the “military unified information space” theory and organized the development of the “automatic control system” for integrated joint operations of land, sea and air networks. By establishing a network-centric command model, it attempts to integrate the command, communication, reconnaissance, firepower, and support of the entire army, realize cross-domain operations in the true sense, and improve battlefield situation awareness and combat command efficiency.
The combat management system will rely on artificial intelligence technology. The application of artificial intelligence will not only multiply the capabilities of weapon systems, but will also fundamentally change the implementation of the OODA loop. In future combat management systems, artificial intelligence technology will become the core support and driving engine, and the key factor is the quality of the algorithm. The system will have built-in upgradeable artificial intelligence, and people will be in a supervisory or collaborative state to minimize manual input, spontaneously identify and classify threat targets in the combat environment, autonomously evaluate and weigh, and automatically allocate weapons, thereby providing adaptive combat advantages and decision-making options.
For example, the “Intelligent Autonomous Systems Strategy” released by the US Navy in July 2021 aims to accelerate the development and deployment of intelligent platforms through a highly distributed command and control architecture, integrate unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, and autonomous driving technologies, and realize future combat decisions facilitated by intelligent autonomous systems. The Russian military has more than 150 artificial intelligence projects under development, one of the focuses of which is to introduce artificial intelligence into command and control systems, adapt intelligent software to different weapon platforms, achieve the unification of physical and cognitive domains, and double combat effectiveness through intelligent empowerment.
The combat management system will achieve a breakthrough in cross-domain capabilities. The military’s combat management capabilities are shifting towards full-domain coordination, including land, sea, air, space, electricity, network, cognitive domain, and social domain. To adapt to the full-domain environment, the combat management system needs to have the following functions: a resilient and redundant communication system, flexible and secure data operation; artificial intelligence and machine learning directly extract and process data from sensors, and conduct decentralized integration and sharing; segmented access based on confidentiality levels to meet perception, understanding, and action needs. On this basis, it is also necessary to provide troops with reconnaissance and surveillance, tactical communications, data processing, network command and control, and other capabilities.
The future combat management system will focus on security processing, connectivity, data management, application, sensor integration and effect integration, optimize data sharing, collaborative operations and command and control in the entire combat domain, and support decision-making advantages from the tactical level to the strategic level. Its purpose is only one: to give commanders the ability to surpass their opponents.
(The author is the deputy director and professor of the Training Management Department of the Armed Police Command Academy)
China Military Network Ministry of National Defense NetworkThursday, November 14, 2024
Intelligent warfare is the latest form of warfare development. Under intelligent warfare conditions, the battle rhythm changes rapidly, humans and machines are deeply integrated, and complex elements are interconnected, presenting new characteristics on the battlefield.
The combat tempo changes rapidly. The combat tempo refers to the phenomenon that in the course of combat, different participating forces, under different combat missions, actions, and spaces, synchronously complete their respective established tasks at specified time nodes according to the combat phase division. In essence, the combat tempo is the effect of the confrontational interaction between the military systems of all parties in a common external environment. It is a regular phenomenon that appears periodically or non-periodically. It is objective due to the interaction, and uncertain due to the active role played by the opposing parties based on their respective perspectives. In war, the combat tempo represents not only the speed of time and speed, but also the embodiment of the comprehensive effect of multiple factors such as time, space, purpose, goal, and opponent. With the continuous expansion of the battlefield and the improvement of battlefield cognitive decision-making capabilities, the future intelligent battlefield may gradually change from the simple “quick kill” type of simple use of the one-dimensionality of time to a comprehensive game and mixed confrontation in multiple dimensional fields such as politics, economy, diplomacy and multiple time and space cycles. Combat is a game between the enemy and us, and the quality of our combat rhythm depends largely on the opponent as a reference system. The combat rhythm should always focus on the opponent, and by changing the enemy and our power comparison in various forms in various dimensions, we can gain an “asymmetric” advantage, so that the battlefield situation can continue to develop in a direction that is beneficial to us in a variety of states between the active “using our own capabilities to control the enemy’s inability” and “suppressing the enemy’s capabilities when we are unable to do so.”
Humans and machines achieve deep integration. In a broad sense, human-machine integration refers to the state and process in which all humans and machines work closely together based on their respective characteristics and advantages. With the emergence of artificial intelligence technology, especially multimodal large models represented by ChatGPT, the foundation has been laid for the knowledge-level interaction between humans and machines, which has brought new opportunities for combat planning and combat command invisibly. As intelligent creatures, humans have creativity and thoughtfulness that other objects cannot match. Compared with humans, machines have obvious advantages in storage, computing and other capabilities, and have the characteristics of fast response speed and strong environmental adaptability. Under current technical conditions, the dominance of humans in human-machine fusion intelligence determines the basic mode of human-machine fusion operations. Machines are only tools and means of implementation for operations. To a certain extent, they become the main body of operations together with operators. The interactive output is also limited to the predictable changes defined by several major variables, and is closely related to the professional ability and experience of the operators themselves. As technology continues to improve, the positioning of people may gradually shift to macro-control, focusing on controlling strategic key contents and nodes such as the timing of launching a war, the scale level, the style intensity, the process development, and the ending time. The combination of human and machine does not mean a hard coupling between the two in terms of spatial position and physics, but through the mechanism and engineering of business processes and operating procedures, they play to their respective strengths and achieve dynamic adaptive operation.
Complex elements are interconnected. Modern warfare is a complex giant system, especially in the current era of global, cross-domain, and distributed operations. Focusing on the construction of the “kill network” and element-level coordination, the widely distributed combat force entities, combat platforms, sensors, weapons, etc. are further decoupled, and the combat system is gradually developing towards “decentralization”. Focusing on the combat purpose and combat objectives, in the combat system, various functional combat elements that are three-dimensionally networked are quickly reorganized and aggregated in a self-organizing and self-adaptive manner to dynamically form a closed kill chain. It is difficult to discover, identify, and calibrate the landmark nodes of the opponent’s system one by one in the various links of “detection, control, attack, and evaluation” as before, and then achieve system destruction. This “black box” state in the organization and operation of forces makes the logical causal relationship of the combat behaviors of all parties more “inexplicable” and the “incomprehensible war” effect more prominent. War is largely a confrontation of human thinking, and thanks to the help of intelligent decision-making systems, the uncertainty of combat intentions in future wars will be further increased in the fierce confrontation of broader cognitive and information domains. From the initial combat purpose to the final combat means, combat methods, and force application, “misalignment” may occur. Therefore, future wars will place more emphasis on finding a balance in active changes at the battle tactical level, which puts higher demands on better realizing “you fight yours, I fight mine” and exerting one’s own advantages.
