Technology and war are always intertwined. While technological innovation is constantly changing the face of war, it has not changed the violent nature and coercive purpose of war. In recent years, with the rapid development and application of artificial intelligence technology, people have never stopped debating the impact of artificial intelligence on war. Compared with artificial intelligence (AI), general artificial intelligence (AGI) has a higher level of intelligence and is considered to be a form of intelligence equivalent to human intelligence. How will the emergence of AGI affect war? Will it change the violence and coercive nature of war? This article will discuss this issue with you with a series of thoughts.
Is AGI just an enabling technology?
Many people believe that although large models and generative artificial intelligence show the strong military application potential of AGI in the future, they are only an enabling technology after all, that is, they can only enable and optimize weapons and equipment, make existing equipment more intelligent, and improve combat efficiency, and it is difficult to bring about a real military revolution. Just like “cyber warfare weapons” were also highly expected by many countries when they first appeared, but now it seems a bit exaggerated.
The disruptive nature of AGI is actually completely different. It brings huge changes to the battlefield with a reaction speed and knowledge breadth far exceeding that of humans. More importantly, it has brought about huge disruptive results by promoting the rapid advancement of science and technology. On the battlefield of the future, autonomous weapons will be endowed with advanced intelligence by AGI, their performance will be generally enhanced, and they will become “strong at attack and difficult to defend” with their speed and cluster advantages. By then, the highly intelligent autonomous weapons that some scientists have predicted will become a reality, and AGI will play a key role in this. At present, the military application areas of artificial intelligence include autonomous weapons, intelligence analysis, intelligent decision-making, intelligent training, intelligent support, etc. These applications are difficult to simply summarize as “empowerment”. Moreover, AGI has a fast development speed and a short iteration cycle, and is in a state of continuous evolution. In future operations, AGI needs to be a priority, and special attention should be paid to the possible changes it brings.
Will AGI make war disappear?
Historian Geoffrey Blainey believes that “wars always occur because of misjudgments of each other’s strength or will”, and with the application of AGI in the military field, misjudgments will become less and less. Therefore, some scholars speculate that wars will decrease or disappear. In fact, relying on AGI can indeed reduce a large number of misjudgments, but even so, it is impossible to eliminate all uncertainties, because one of the characteristics of war is uncertainty. Moreover, not all wars are caused by misjudgments. Moreover, the inherent unpredictability and inexplicability of AGI, as well as people’s lack of experience in using AGI, will bring new uncertainties, making people fall into a thicker “fog of artificial intelligence”.
There are also rational problems with AGI algorithms. Some scholars believe that AGI’s mining and accurate prediction of important intelligence will have a dual impact. In actual operation, AGI does make fewer mistakes than humans, which can improve the accuracy of intelligence and help reduce misjudgments; but sometimes it may also make humans blindly confident and stimulate them to take risks. The offensive advantage brought by AGI leads to the best defense strategy being “preemptive strike”, which breaks the balance between offense and defense, triggers a new security dilemma, and increases the risk of war.
AGI has the characteristics of strong versatility and can be easily combined with weapons and equipment. Unlike nuclear, biological and chemical technologies, it has a low threshold for use and is particularly easy to spread. Due to the technological gap between countries, people are likely to use immature AGI weapons on the battlefield, which brings huge risks. For example, the application of drones in the latest local war practices has stimulated many small and medium-sized countries to start purchasing drones in large quantities. The low-cost equipment and technology brought by AGI are very likely to stimulate the occurrence of a new arms race.
Will AGI be the ultimate deterrent?
Deterrence is the ability to maintain a certain capability to intimidate an adversary from taking actions that go beyond its own interests. When deterrence is too strong to be used, it is the ultimate deterrence, such as the nuclear deterrence of mutually assured destruction. But what ultimately determines the outcome is “human nature,” which is the key that will never be missing in war.
Without the various trade-offs of “humanity”, will AGI become a formidable deterrent? AGI is fast but lacks empathy, is resolute in execution, and has an extremely compressed gaming space. AGI is a key factor on future battlefields, but it is difficult to accurately evaluate due to lack of practical experience, and it is easy to overestimate the opponent’s capabilities. In addition, in terms of autonomous weapon control, whether humans are in the loop and supervise the entire process, or are humans outside the loop and completely let go, this undoubtedly requires deep thought. Can the firing control of intelligent weapons be handed over to AGI? If not, the deterrent effect will be greatly reduced; if so, can the life and death of humans really be decided by machines that have nothing to do with them? In research at Cornell University, large war game simulation models often “suddenly use nuclear attacks” to escalate wars, even if they are in a neutral state.
Perhaps one day in the future, AGI will surpass humans in capabilities. Will we be unable to supervise and control it? Geoffrey Hinton, who proposed the concept of deep learning, said that he has never seen a case where something with a higher level of intelligence was controlled by something with a lower level of intelligence. Some research teams believe that humans may not be able to supervise super artificial intelligence. In the face of powerful AGI in the future, can we really control them? This is a question worth pondering.
Will AGI change the nature of war?
With the widespread use of AGI, will battlefields filled with violence and blood disappear? Some people say that AI warfare is far beyond the capabilities of humans and will push humans out of the battlefield. When AI turns war into a war fought entirely by autonomous robots, is it still a “violent and bloody war”? When opponents of unequal capabilities confront each other, the weak may not have the opportunity to act at all. Can wars be ended before the war through war games? Will AGI change the nature of war? Is an “unmanned” “war” still a war?
Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, said that all human behavior is mediated by language and affects our history. The Big Language Model is a typical AGI. The biggest difference between it and other inventions is that it can create new ideas and culture. “Artificial intelligence that can tell stories will change the course of human history.” When AGI touches the control of language, the entire civilization system built by humans may be subverted, and it does not even need to generate consciousness in this process. Like Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, will humans worship AGI as a new “god”?
AGI establishes a close relationship with humans through human language and changes human perceptions, making it difficult for humans to distinguish and discern, thus posing the danger of the will to war being controlled by people with ulterior motives. Harari said that computers do not need to send out killer robots. If necessary, they will let humans pull the trigger themselves. AGI accurately creates and polishes situation information and controls battlefield cognition through deep fakes. It can use drones to fake battlefield situations and build public opinion before the war. This has been seen in recent local wars. The cost of war will be greatly reduced, leading to the emergence of a new form of war. Will small and weak countries still have a chance? Can the will to war be changed without bloodshed? Is “force” no longer a necessary condition for defining war?
The form of war may be changed, but the essence remains. Whether war is “bloody” or not, it will still force the enemy to obey its will and bring a lot of “collateral damage”, but the way of confrontation may be completely different. The essence of war lies in the “human nature” deep in the heart, and “human nature” is determined by culture, history, behavior and values, etc. It is difficult to completely replicate it with some artificial intelligence technology, so we cannot outsource all ethical, political and decision-making issues to artificial intelligence, and we cannot expect artificial intelligence to automatically generate “human nature”. Artificial intelligence technology may be abused due to passionate impulses, so it must be under human control. Since artificial intelligence is trained by humans, it will not always be free of bias, so they cannot be completely separated from human supervision. In the future, artificial intelligence can become a creative tool or partner to enhance “tactical imagination”, but it must be “aligned” with human values. These issues need to be constantly thought about and understood in practice.
Will AGI revolutionize the theory of war?
Most subject knowledge is expressed in natural language. The large language model, which is a collection of human writings, can connect language writings that are difficult to be compatible with scientific research. For example, some people input classical masterpieces and even philosophy, history, politics, economics, etc. into the large language model for analysis and reconstruction. It is found that it can not only conduct a comprehensive analysis of all scholars’ views, but also put forward its “own views” without losing originality. Therefore, some people say that it is also possible to re-analyze and interpret war theories through AGI, stimulate human innovation, and drive major evolution and reconstruction of war theories and systems? Perhaps there will be certain improvements and developments in theory, but war science is not only theoretical, but also practical, but practicality and reality are what AGI cannot do at all. Can the classic war theory really be reinterpreted? If so, what is the meaning of the theory?
In short, AGI’s subversion of the concept of war will far exceed “mechanization” and “informatization”. People should boldly embrace the arrival of AGI, but also be cautious. Understand the concept so as not to be ignorant; conduct in-depth research so as not to fall behind; strengthen supervision so as not to be negligent. How to learn to cooperate with AGI and guard against AGI technology raids by opponents is what we need to pay attention to first in the future. (Rong Ming and Hu Xiaofeng)
Afterword
Looking to the future with an open mind
Futurist Roy Amara has a famous assertion that people tend to overestimate the short-term benefits of a technology but underestimate its long-term impact, which is later called “Amara’s Law”. This law emphasizes the nonlinear characteristics of technological development, that is, the actual impact of technology often takes a longer time scale to fully manifest, reflecting the pulse and trend of technological development and embodying human acceptance and longing for technology.
At present, in the process of the development of artificial intelligence from weak artificial intelligence to strong artificial intelligence, and from special artificial intelligence to general artificial intelligence, every time people think that they have completed 90% of the journey, looking back, they may have only completed less than 10% of the journey. The driving role of the scientific and technological revolution in the military revolution is becoming more and more prominent, especially the multi-faceted penetration of high-tech represented by artificial intelligence technology into the military field, which has led to profound changes in the mechanism, elements and methods of winning wars.
In the foreseeable future, intelligent technologies such as AGI will not stop iterating, and the cross-evolution of intelligent technologies and their enabling applications in the military field will become more diversified, perhaps going beyond the boundaries of human cognition of existing war forms. The development of science and technology is unstoppable and unstoppable. Whoever can see the trend and future of science and technology, the potential and power of science and technology with a keen eye and a clear mind, and see through the “fog of war”, will be more likely to seize the initiative to win.
This reminds us that we should have a broader perspective and thinking when exploring the development of future war forms, so that we can get closer to the underestimated reality. Where is AGI going? Where is intelligent warfare going? This is a test of human wisdom.
Cognitive domain warfare refers to the important form of public opinion propaganda, psychological attack and defense, winning people’s hearts, subverting confidence, influencing beliefs, fighting for thinking, and ideological struggle, guided by modern cognitive theory and science, calling on multi-domain means such as public opinion, psychology, and law, and using multi-dimensional technologies such as modern networks, media, text, pictures, videos, and numbers, aiming to fight for people’s initiative in thinking, beliefs, values, personal attitudes, emotions, identification, and judgment tendencies. Cognitive domain warfare is a complex collection of traditional public opinion warfare, psychological warfare, legal warfare, trade warfare, diplomatic warfare, scientific and technological warfare, ideological warfare, and other multi-domain warfare.
At present, cognitive domain warfare has become an important support for countries to carry out military struggles and struggles in other fields. Language confrontation driven by cognitive domain goals has become an important form of cognitive domain warfare and deserves high attention.
Language confrontation: a new area for exerting influence on combat targets
Cognitive domain operations are a result of the development of contemporary cognitive science research. They are an emerging field of operations that emerged after people actively explored the cognitive activities of the brain to gain a more complex, abstract and thorough understanding of the brain. They are also a high-end form of influence in language confrontation that targets the advanced, deep and hidden activities of the audience’s brain. Whether it is the object of information action, the producer of information, the information content itself or the channel of information, cognitive domain operations are all permeated with cognitive characteristics, and always emphasize taking action at the cognitive level.
In terms of the recipients of information, this cognition targets the deep cognitive aspects of the opponent’s audience, including its people, military, military commanders or important leaders, important figures in the political and business circles, and even directly includes the leaders of the other country or specific important generals of the army, etc. It can also be a specific group of people or the public. It can involve the cognitive preferences, cognitive shortcomings, cognitive habits, cognitive biases, and cognitive misunderstandings of individuals or groups; it can also be the beliefs, values, political identity, national identity, social and cultural identity, and emotional attitudes of individuals and groups.
From the perspective of the distributor and content of information, it should be infused with the cognitive design and arrangement of the information producer, which includes the unique cognition of the text, such as the discourse mode of the text, the narrative mode of the text, the observation perspective of things, the cognitive focus and depth of the narrative, the organization form of the sentence, the value concept and other tendencies of the sentence, the acceptability of the concept of the sentence to the other party, etc.
In terms of the channels for information issuance and dissemination, the form of text is closer to multimedia and multimodal forms, closer to the needs of cyberspace, closer to the advantages of contemporary smart phones, and closer to the characteristics of the current emerging media era, that is, it is more in line with the cognitive characteristics, cognitive habits and cognitive tendencies accepted by the audience. The dissemination form of text fully considers the cognitive effects in international communication, especially cross-cultural, cross-linguistic, cross-media and cross-group cognitive communication. In this way, the text will better influence the audience from a cognitive level.
Language confrontation responds to changes in combat styles and generates new tactics
Throughout human history, it is not difficult to find that the style of military struggle has been constantly changing. From the initial physical struggle with cold weapons to the contest of hot weapons and mechanical forces, and then to the balance and counter-balance of information capabilities under high-tech warfare conditions, in recent years, it has developed towards the intelligent decision-making competition in the direction of intelligence and unmanned. Each change has brought profound changes in tactics. In the current transitional stage of coexistence of mechanization, informatization and intelligence, people not only pay attention to the competition for dominance in the physical and information domains of the battlefield, but also pay more attention to the control of the cognitive domain that affects the main body of war, that is, the competition in the fields of thinking, cognitive patterns and styles, values, emotional attitudes, cultural models, communication patterns, psychological strengths and weaknesses, cognitive preferences, cultural and knowledge maps, and ideological identity of the personnel on both sides of the war. The latter involves the basic situation of social personnel and social existence, that is, the emerging field of cognitive domain warfare, and its tactics have strong particularity.
Flexibility of topics: Cognitive domain operations can select many topics in the cognitive domain and carry out flexible and flexible combat operations. According to the current situation and needs, topics can be selected from the relatively macroscopic strategic level (such as the ideology and system of the opponent’s entire society, etc.), the mesoscopic campaign level (such as social problems in the local field or direction of the opponent’s society: social welfare policy or environmental protection policy, etc.), and very microscopic tactical issues in society (such as the unfairness, injustice, and non-beautiful side of society reflected by a certain person or a specific event). Macro, meso, and micro cognitive domain issues are interconnected and transformed into each other. It is very likely that a microscopic topic will also become a major macroscopic strategic topic. The raising of issues depends on the relationship with the entire military operation. Cognitive domain operations should be subject to the overall combat operations and serve the needs of the macroscopic political and diplomatic situation. More importantly, topics should be prepared in peacetime, and data on various topics should be collected in peacetime, especially paying attention to various important data in the real society. Once needed, these data can be quickly transformed into arrows, bullets, and shells shot at the enemy’s cognitive domain, and even become strategic weapons that affect the overall situation.
Controllability of the operational level: The important design of cognitive operations is that it can be controlled and regulated as a whole at the operational level, and can be upgraded or reduced in dimension according to changes in the situation. If it is necessary at the strategic level, the commander can open the strategic level design and force investment; if it is necessary at the campaign level, it can also be controlled at the corresponding campaign level; if it is only necessary at the level of specific small problems, it can also be controlled at the corresponding niche local level, so that the entire action serves the needs of the overall combat operation. The strategic campaign tactics here refer more to operational design and force investment. Since the battlefield situation may change rapidly, some issues may also change at the level, with strategic issues affecting the effects of the campaign and tactical levels; some issues, due to the particularity of tactical issues, become campaign and strategic level issues that affect the overall situation.
Dominance of emerging media: The main influence channel of cognitive domain has shifted from traditional paper media and print media to emerging media. Traditional media mainly rely on single media, such as newspapers, magazines, books, flyers, posters, etc. to convey information; the emergence of television in the later period brought three-dimensional media. In the Internet era, especially the Internet 2.0 era and the birth of smart communication devices, people rely more on multi-media, multi-modal, short videos and short texts to convey information. The introduction of various advanced devices such as smart phones, smart tablets, smart players, and the birth of various emerging social software and tools have made emerging media the main tool for people to communicate and exchange. Emerging media, emerging social software and tools have become an important space for various forces to play games and struggle in social security, public opinion security, ideological security, social security and political security. Internet security, especially whether the security of new social media, emerging social software and tools can be mastered, is, to some extent, the key to whether a country’s cognitive domain can be secure. Information in emerging media tools and new media space has become the main battlefield, main position and main space for competition in cognitive operations of various countries. It is worth pointing out that ideas and theories that influence people’s cognition will become the most influential weapons at all levels of cognitive domain operations.
Language confrontation adapts to the intelligent era, cognitive computing enhances new computing power
In the era of artificial intelligence, based on the substantial improvement in big data analysis and application, supercomputing capabilities, intelligent computing capabilities, natural language processing capabilities, smartphone communication capabilities, and new generation network communication capabilities, humans have begun to accurately model and analyze language culture, psychological cognition, group emotions, and social behavior for the entire society, the entire network domain, local groups, local different groups, and specific individuals. In particular, people have a deep understanding and grasp of brain cognition, human brain thinking, thinking patterns, habitual preferences, image schemas, cognitive frameworks, and even neural networks, human-computer collaboration, and brain control technology. As long as there is enough diverse dynamic data, people can calculate and simulate all people’s psychological activities, emotional activities, cognitive activities, social opinions, and behavioral patterns. Through deep calculations, actuarial calculations, and clever calculations, people’s cognitive world can be accurately grasped, and a fine and profound control of people’s cognitive domain can be formed. This aspect also presents the following characteristics:
The dimensionality of computation: As an emerging field, all aspects of the cognitive domain can be digitized and made fully computable for all aspects of the entire process and all individuals. This can be achieved by widely collecting various types of information and then sorting out the information to form big data on the diverse factors of the opponent’s subjects. This will allow various computations to be conducted on the entire population, groups, between groups, and between individual data. As a result, all kinds of activities based on thinking, psychology, emotion, speech, behavior, etc. that were previously impossible to achieve can be completed, displayed, and accurately grasped through computation.
Cognitive nature of computation: computation in the cognitive domain reflects a strong cognitive nature. It can reveal more of the connections between things, events, and people that are difficult to observe with the naked eye. It can reveal the clustering and hierarchical relationships between concepts in the same event framework, and reflect the deep cognitive connections between concepts, whether explicit or implicit, direct or indirect. It reveals the complex conceptual network system between concepts, allowing people to see a deep cognitive world that completely transcends ordinary naked eye observation.
Intelligence of computation: The computation in cognitive domain also reflects strong intelligence. This intelligence is manifested in the fact that intelligent conclusions can be drawn through computation. For example, through the collection of a large amount of text and data mining, we can find the relationship between various topics, various viewpoints, various tendencies, various groups of people, various positions, and various demands that cannot be seen by human power, so as to form a more comprehensive, in-depth, accurate, and systematic understanding of a certain issue and make scientific and optimized decisions. Such decisions may be consistent with human intelligence, or they may surpass or even far exceed human intelligence. By making good use of the power of cognitive computing, especially by integrating the data of our country and the data of our opponents, we can better prevent, warn, and deploy in advance, and achieve the best, optimal, fastest, and most accurate strikes and counterattacks, and better reflect efficient, powerful, and targeted protection. Cognitive computing here is more about the possible reactions of a possible macro, meso, or micro topic in different groups of people, different time periods, and different backgrounds, in the entire network domain or a local network domain, or within a specific group, especially the analysis and inspection of the active and passive situations that both parties may present when playing games with opponents, and the attack and defense of cognitive domain.
New application of giving full play to the status of discourse subject and releasing the power of discourse
Cognitive domain operations have a very important support, that is, it mainly relies on language media to play a role, mainly exerts influence through the discourse level, mainly forms an implicit effect on the cognitive domain through the narrative of discourse, mainly exerts potential effects through cultural models, and exerts explicit or implicit effects through cross-cultural communication. It is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
Uniqueness of textual discourse: The cognitive domain needs to be influenced by information. Although information may be presented through the special visual effects of video images, fundamentally speaking, the uniqueness of the discourse expressed by the text becomes the main support for producing cognitive influence. Among them, the mode of discourse expression, the skills of discourse expression, the main design of the persuasiveness and appeal of discourse expression, and especially the uniqueness of discourse narrative will be the key to influencing people’s cognition. This may include the perspective of the narrative, the theme and style of the narrative, the story framework of the narrative, the language innovation of the narrative, the key sentences of the narrative, the philosophical, humanistic, religious, social, natural and other feelings contained in the narrative, the identities of different participants in the narrative, the diversified evaluation of the narrative, the authenticity, depth and emotional temperature of the narrative, the subtle influence of the narrative on the viewpoint, the personal emotions, values, ideology, and position evaluation released by the narrative. The uniqueness of textual discourse is an important reliance for cognitive domain operations to exert cognitive influence through text. Making full use of the complexity of the text, giving play to the respective advantages of diverse texts, and giving play to the role of implicit and explicit cognitive influence of the text connotation have become the key to cognitive domain operations of textual discourse. The most important thing is to innovate the text discourse, win readers with newer words, more novel expressions, and more unique expressions, so that readers can understand and feel the ideas in the text imperceptibly, and accept the ideas of the text silently.
Potentiality of cultural models: In cognitive domain operations, we must deeply grasp the characteristics and models of different countries and national cultures. Different countries and different nationalities have different cultural models. Their philosophical thinking, traditional culture, religious beliefs, customs, and ways of thinking are all obviously different. Citizens of different cultures also have different national psychology and national cognitive models. They should also have typical cognitive preferences belonging to their own national culture, as well as corresponding shortcomings and weaknesses. Some of them obviously have a huge difference in understanding from other nationalities in their own country, and even misunderstandings and hostility. Therefore, cognitive domain operations at the cultural level are to grasp the overall cultural models of different countries, build cultural models of different groups in different countries, build different cognitive models of different countries on different things, and fully grasp the overall attitude and behavior of a country on a series of things and issues, especially for some typical cases, cultural taboos, religious requirements, spiritual pursuits, and overall concepts. With the help of existing theories and discoveries, we should comprehensively construct the basic performance of different groups of people in the cognitive field on some typical problems, sensitive problems, and important problems, so as to provide important reference and guidance for the next step of cognitive operations. Strengthening the study of the cultural patterns of different enemy personnel, especially military personnel, personnel in key positions, including the study and construction of the basic cultural characteristics and models of enemy generals, officers, soldiers, etc., such as the character’s psychological cognitive behavior and cultural model portrait, has become the core practice of cognitive domain operations. The cognitive analysis of ordinary enemy personnel, especially the general public, citizens, and specific groups, including special non-governmental organizations, is also of great value.
Cross-cultural strategic communication: Cognitive domain operations are international language and cultural communications, and need to follow the laws of international communication. We must grasp the basic paradigm of international communication, skillfully combine our own stories with international expressions, and skillfully combine the other party’s language and culture with our own stories and ideas; we must be good at combining different art forms, including text, pictures, paintings, music (sound), video and other means or multimodal means to achieve international communication of information. At the same time, we must coordinate multi-dimensional macro communication at the strategic level: we must use various means to carry out communication through military-civilian integration, military-civilian coordination, and military-civilian integration; in addition to non-governmental organizations, we must especially rely on civilian forces, experts, opinion leaders, and ordinary people to help the military carry out cognitive domain operations; we must unify the setting of topics, speak out in multiple locations and dimensions, form a strategic communication situation, and form a good situation for emergency solutions for major actions, major issues, and major crisis management, form a good public opinion atmosphere, create positive effects, and eliminate or extinguish adverse effects. In particular, we must establish a capable team that is proficient in foreign languages, understands cross-cultural skills, knows the laws of international communication, and can speak out skillfully on international multi-dimensional platforms. These people can usually conduct extensive topic perception, information collection and discussion, and use common or special topics to build personal connections and establish fan communities. More importantly, at critical moments, they can exert influence through their fan groups and complete strategic communication tasks.
At present, with the prevalence of hybrid warfare, multi-domain warfare and global warfare, cognitive domain warfare has become a common means of mixing and blending. The process of cognitive domain warfare from unfamiliarity, emerging, development to growth is also the advanced stage, complex stage and upgraded stage of the development of traditional public opinion warfare, psychological warfare and legal warfare. Its rise is more deceptive, ambiguous, concealed, embedded, implanted and unobservable, especially considering its deep integration with the entry of contemporary emerging media, and it is constantly learning and drawing on new ideas, new technologies and new means that integrate into multiple disciplines, cross-disciplines and cross-disciplinary disciplines. As a result, cognitive domain warfare has become a form of warfare that we must be highly vigilant and guard against. (Liang Xiaobo, professor and doctoral supervisor at the College of Arts and Sciences of the National University of Defense Technology)
[This article is a phased result of the National Social Science Fund Major Project “National Defense Language Capacity Building in the Perspective of National Defense and Military Reform”]
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.
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)
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
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.
The combat window refers to the time and space range that is chosen to stimulate the effectiveness of the system’s combat cycle and is conducive to the joint combat force’s implementation of cross-domain coordinated operations. The concept of combat window comes from fighter jets. It is an innovative development of the theory of joint combat command under the new situation. It will be more widely used than fighter jets in combat command activities. Whether the selection of fighter jets in the confrontation of the joint combat force system can be regarded as a form of “combat window” directly affects the commander’s vision. In the complex and changeable information battlefield environment, the combat window has gradually become a new basis for the joint combat force to implement cross-domain coordinated operations, which is of great significance for seizing the initiative on the battlefield and shaping a favorable situation.
Constructing a combat window to highlight the comprehensiveness of cross-domain collaborative combat preparations
The theater joint command should closely follow the combat missions, opponents, and environment, firmly grasp the strategic and campaign initiative, strengthen the pre-positioning of joint combat resources, actively optimize the battlefield environment, and create conditions for establishing combat windows.
Carry out careful and continuous joint reconnaissance around the operational window. The time and space scope of the operational window includes the time interval and the strike area for attacking enemy targets. Among them, the strike area is generally centered on the strike target, which refers to a relatively closed space that can regulate the system combat forces to maintain comprehensive control over the local battlefield and is suitable for attacking enemy node targets. In order to ensure the smooth implementation of operations in the operational window area, its periphery can be divided into warning patrol areas, interception and annihilation areas, and defensive combat areas to provide support and guarantee for it. The joint command agency should focus on the reporting needs of priority intelligence and warning information in the operational window, and comprehensively use the reconnaissance and early warning forces and means of various services to implement careful, continuous and focused joint reconnaissance to obtain intelligence and warning information in the operational window area and its peripheral areas. If necessary, strategic reconnaissance and early warning forces can be coordinated to provide intelligence support, eliminate reconnaissance and early warning blind spots in the time and space of the operational window, and ensure that the flow of intelligence and warning information from acquisition to use is efficient and stable.
Predict the combat window and timely adjust the cycle plan of the combat readiness training of the task force. The scale and intensity of the high alert state maintained by the task forces of various services and arms greatly restricts the time and space scope of the combat window. Periodically maintaining a high state of alert requires the task forces of various services and arms to manage and operate in accordance with the state of war, which is an important indicator of the combat effectiveness of the task force. At present, the task force should carry out daily management and training in accordance with the three states of combat readiness, training, and preparation. The purpose is to ensure that a considerable number of combat-capable forces can carry out combat window tasks at any time and continuously improve their actual combat level. Non-combat-capable forces should coordinate resources and concentrate on training to generate system combat capabilities. The preparation period is in the interval between combat readiness training. The combat personnel should be flexibly organized to rest, repair equipment and conduct necessary training to create conditions for transitioning to the training cycle or combat readiness cycle. By predicting the combat window, the theater joint command timely adjusts the cycle plan of combat readiness training for large-scale task forces, so that they are rhythmically and regularly in a high state of alert, providing a force basis for implementing window operations.
Focus on the operational window and roll out the linkage operation of cross-domain collaborative combat plans. Since the operational window is often fleeting, the completeness of the cross-domain collaborative combat plans of various services and arms formulated around the operational window may be greatly reduced. Therefore, the theater joint command should gather the collective wisdom of commanders and their command organs, rely on the command information system, and roll out the formulation of cross-domain collaborative combat plans through systematic, procedural, and professional fast command linkage operations. Command linkage operations involve linkage operations of superior and subordinate command agencies, linkage operations of the entire process of reconnaissance, control, attack, protection, and evaluation, and human-machine interaction linkage operations. The implementation of command linkage operations should unify operational intentions, focus on operational windows, use the command operation platform for situation sharing, carry out parallel operations in a coordinated manner, conduct periodic operational planning, conduct situation analysis at any time, follow up on operational concepts, enhance the credibility of simulation and evaluation, and simultaneously formulate and improve cross-domain collaborative combat plans. The implementation of linkage operations helps to shorten the formulation time of cross-domain collaborative combat plans, improve the feasibility of plans, and seize the opportunity of operational windows as soon as possible.
Applying combat windows to highlight the effectiveness of cross-domain collaborative combat system confrontation
The theater joint command should make decisive decisions to launch operations based on careful planning and comprehensive preparation in response to different combat objectives and tasks, different attributes of combat opponents, and different combat types and styles, and quickly seize the initiative on the battlefield in the combat window.
Superimpose the effectiveness of the combat system. The task forces of various services and arms work closely together within the time and space of the combat window, work together as a whole, and focus on combat tasks to form a system combat effect. At present, with the rapid development of military science and technology and the continuous adjustment and optimization of new combat forces, precision, automation, intelligence, and unmanned weapons and equipment are being used more and more widely. Within a specific combat window, almost every service and arms has more or less the means to accurately strike enemy targets in multiple domains over long distances. Even land-based task forces have the ability to accurately strike enemy targets at long distances and the ability to project troops near the coast, which enables the task forces of various services and arms to carry out compound strikes within the combat window, becoming the preferred method for joint operations to strike enemy targets. Compared with a single service and arms, compound strikes of multiple services and arms will produce more powerful, more accurate, more stable, and faster compound strike effectiveness. The compound strike effectiveness of the task forces of various services and arms focuses on combat targets within the combat window, which will cause the value of cross-domain collaborative combat effectiveness to increase sharply, and the superimposed effect will be more obvious.
Converge combat support resources. Combat support resources are material factors that affect the selection and application of combat windows, involving many resources such as reconnaissance and intelligence support, information support, and rear-end support. Implementing converged support and support for the theater in wartime is the key to applying the combat window. The combat support of friendly theaters will enable the task force to maintain a high level of combat readiness, and commanders will have more combat options; the aerospace information support and network combat support provided by the strategic support force will be an important support in the field of joint reconnaissance and intelligence, and information operations; and the joint logistics support force is the main force for implementing joint logistics support and strategic and campaign support, and the volatility of the combat capability of the theater task force is largely restricted by this. In this regard, by clarifying the mission and tasks, command authority, institutional mechanisms, and laws and regulations of the combat support force, we will actively gather combat support resources around the combat window, implement integrated, comprehensive and efficient support, and greatly improve the system effectiveness of cross-domain collaborative operations.
Regulate the operational fluctuation cycle. The joint command command command of the task forces of various services and arms to carry out strike operations against enemy targets. Before the operation, it is necessary to convert the combat readiness level, conduct coordinated exercises, and deploy to the standby area. Even if the task force is faster in preparation for strikes, more skilled in strike methods, and more optimized in strike processes, it needs to be completed within the corresponding time period. At the same time, commanders and combatants will be affected by combat fatigue, resulting in a significant reduction in command decision-making efficiency and strike effectiveness, which greatly restricts the extension of combat duration and makes the fluctuation cycle of the combat capability of the task force more obvious. After the strike operation, the replenishment and rest of combat personnel, the maintenance and repair of weapons and equipment, and the summary and review of combat experience and lessons all require an adjustment cycle. Commanders need to timely regulate the fluctuation cycle of the task force’s strike capability according to the different combat methods and weapon and equipment damage mechanisms of various services and arms, clarify the combat threshold of the task force, and minimize the interference of combat fluctuations as much as possible, thereby greatly improving the cross-domain collaborative combat capability.
Maintain the operational window and highlight the stability of battlefield control in cross-domain collaborative operations
The theater joint command should strictly control the scale and intensity of window operations, strengthen joint management and control, strictly control combat costs, improve combat effectiveness, actively create a favorable battlefield situation, avoid combat passivity, and prevent window operations from expanding into full-scale operations.
Strengthen battlefield linkage control. Battlefield control by various services plays an important role in shaping a stable combat situation, strengthening multi-domain space control, and maintaining combat windows. Strengthen the control of cross-domain collaborative combat battlefield space, including battlefield spaces such as land, sea, air, space, and network, as well as electromagnetic spectrum and time-space reference battlefield space. Among them, the battlefield control area is mainly divided into combat window areas, strategic support areas, alert isolation areas, frontier warning areas, and friendly support areas in various fields. Under the unified command and control of commanders and command agencies, the task forces of various services and arms clarify the primary and secondary relationships of cross-domain collaborative control, clarify control rules, mechanisms and disciplines, adopt a variety of control methods, and comprehensively use command information systems and other advanced technical means to vigorously strengthen the timeliness and accuracy of battlefield linkage control.
Comprehensively evaluate the combat effectiveness. The command organization should closely follow the formulation process of the cross-domain collaborative combat plan of the combat window, closely follow the collaborative control instructions, closely follow the collaborative actions of the task force, and closely follow the actual collaborative support, and implement rapid, efficient, and continuous performance and effectiveness evaluation during the window operation. Focusing on the achievement of combat objectives, adapting to the characteristics of window operations with full-domain linkage, comprehensively using a variety of combat evaluation tools and means, integrating system evaluation algorithms, data and capabilities, optimizing the evaluation system dominated by combat effectiveness, process management, information support, and human-in-the-loop, forming an evaluation model that matches combat orders, actions, and effects, and combines combat performance with effectiveness indicator judgment, thereby improving the accuracy and timeliness of combat window effect evaluation.
Actively shape the new battlefield situation. After continuous preparations for military struggle against the enemy, interactive deterrence and control, and limited strikes within the combat window, the state and situation formed by the enemy and us in terms of combat force comparison, deployment and action are relatively stable, thus forming a battlefield situation under the new situation, and its development trend is also predictable and expected. Commanders and their command organs continue to have a deep understanding of the characteristics and laws of the enemy situation, our situation and battlefield environment in this strategic direction, and have a clear understanding of the basic outline of the future struggle situation. They can clarify future combat objectives and measures, and their confidence in winning will gradually increase, creating conditions for determining the next round of combat windows.
Operational coordination is a key element in achieving systemic operations, releasing overall effectiveness, and achieving operational objectives in modern warfare. In recent years, with the breakthrough progress of military science and technology represented by artificial intelligence, the enabling and efficiency-enhancing role of science and technology has become more prominent. While profoundly changing the form of war and combat style, it has also spawned a new mode of operational coordination – autonomous coordination. At present, we should scientifically grasp the opportunities and challenges of the new military revolution, dynamically coordinate the development trend of autonomous coordination, and thus promote the accelerated transformation and upgrading of combat methods.
Transforming towards intelligent empowerment and autonomous collaboration
Future wars will be all-round confrontations between the two sides using “people + intelligent equipment”. Limited by military technology, system platforms, combat capabilities, etc., traditional combat coordination has been difficult to adapt to the modern battlefield where opportunities are fleeting due to limitations such as periodic solidification and low fault tolerance. With the strong support of advanced technical means such as artificial intelligence and big data, the autonomy and automation level of combat coordination will be greatly improved, and autonomous coordination under intelligent empowerment will also become the key to defeating the enemy.
Wide-area ubiquitous collaboration. In recent years, the in-depth development of communication technology and intelligent technology, the accumulation of data, algorithms, and computing power have promoted the interconnection and aggregation of people, machines, objects, and energy, and extended the military Internet of Things to many fields such as situational awareness, command and control, information and fire strikes, and after-sales support. While promoting the iterative upgrade of combat capabilities, it also provides more options for modern combat collaboration. It can be foreseen that the military Internet of Things will shine on future battlefields. It is not only a key infrastructure to support combat operations, but also a joint hub to maintain combat collaboration. With this as a basis, it will give rise to ubiquitous operations with wide-area dispersion of forces, organizational modules, and highly coordinated actions, which are omnipresent, ubiquitous, and uncontrolled and autonomous.
Deep collaboration between humans and machines. In the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Azerbaijani army built a strong battlefield advantage with the advantage of drones, and to some extent, it also announced the debut of “robot war”. In future wars, unmanned combat forces such as drones, unmanned vehicles, and unmanned ships are accelerating from backstage support and guarantee to front-line combat, and are beginning to play the “protagonist” of the battlefield. Compared with traditional combat coordination, manned and unmanned intelligent coordination presents the characteristics of “decentralization” of combat command, “de-division of labor” in the combat process, high-end skill operation, and fuzzification of the front and rear, and emphasizes human-machine collaboration and algorithm victory. Especially in recent years, intelligent unmanned clusters have emerged and begun to strongly impact the modern battlefield. In the face of these new situations and changes, cluster formation algorithms, formation control algorithms, and complex scene optimization algorithms should be used in a coordinated manner to promote unmanned and manned networking communications and intelligent coordination, promote the integrated operation of intelligence chain, command chain, mobility chain, strike chain, and support chain, and accelerate the generation of precise enemy comprehensive combat capabilities.
Digital intelligence drives collaboration. The traditional combat coordination model under progressive command is no longer able to adapt to the multi-dimensional fast pace of modern warfare. In future wars, intelligence is the key and data is king. The deep integration of big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence has realized the storage, analysis, integration, and application of massive battlefield data, making command and control more scientific and combat coordination more efficient. With powerful resource integration, computing processing, and data analysis capabilities, battlefield intelligence can be quickly integrated, battlefield situation can be perceived in real time, coordination plans can be efficiently formulated, and threat levels can be instantly assessed. The prediction of combat operations, the dissection of typical scenarios, the deployment of combat forces, and the allocation of combat resources can be coordinated as a whole, thereby comprehensively improving the comprehensive quality and efficiency of command and control, firepower strikes, and comprehensive support, and promoting revolutionary changes in combat coordination.
Evolving towards multi-domain linkage and autonomous collaboration
In future wars, the participating forces will be complex and diverse, weapons and equipment will be matched at different levels, and combat methods will be used in a mixed manner, showing distinct characteristics such as intelligent dynamic dispersion of combat command, intelligent wide-area deployment of combat forces, and intelligent dynamic differentiation of combat tasks. It can be foreseen that multi-domain linkage and autonomous coordination will become an important component of combat coordination.
System self-reshapes coordination. In future wars, the multi-domain battlefield space will be a combination of virtual and real, various military operations will interact, and constraints and collaboration will be randomly transformed. Only by adopting an engineered and systematic organizational model can we adapt to the complex multi-domain coordination needs. The essence of this coordination model is to form a wide-area holographic support framework for system self-reshape coordination. Specifically, it is to highlight the concept of system combat, and to solve the practical contradictions such as organizational system construction, institutional mechanism establishment, and coordination rule formulation from an overall perspective; to pay more attention to the system integration effect, and to achieve beyond-visual-range combat and cross-domain coordinated combat of combat units from a wide area; to emphasize efficient and flexible command, to refine the command relationship from various dimensions, and to clarify the command responsibilities; to pay more attention to data precision drive, to integrate network system platforms at all levels, and to establish a dynamic optimization network for detection, control, attack, evaluation and protection tasks. Once this coordination model is formed, it will undoubtedly be able to study and predict typical confrontation scenarios, dynamically select action coordination links, and plan combat operations in various fields in an integrated manner according to the combat environment, combat opponents, and combat tasks.
Tactical adaptive coordination. Local wars and conflicts in recent years have repeatedly shown that the complexity and systemicity of combat coordination have increased exponentially due to the extension of combat data information to the tactical level. Only by achieving efficient processing, integration and sharing of combat data information can adaptive and autonomous coordination between combat users be guaranteed. This coordination model pays more attention to scientific planning and innovative means to form a universal battlefield situation map with full-dimensional coverage, support hierarchical, leapfrog and cross-domain sharing and collaboration among users of all levels and types deployed in a wide area, realize the common perception of battlefield situation by command elements and combat units, and ensure self-synchronous operations within the framework of unified strategic intent, campaign guidance and coordination plan. This coordination model emphasizes the vertical integration of strategy, campaign and tactics, and the horizontal integration of land, sea, air, space and electricity, provides strong information sharing services in detection, early warning and surveillance, and relies on information media to promote the extension of campaign-level joint to tactical-level joint. This coordination model highlights the standardized operation of command operation and force application, and promotes the connection of combat command levels, cross-domain linkage, element interaction and situation sharing with the help of cutting-edge technologies such as big data and cloud computing, realizes intelligent coordination between command systems, weapon platforms and sensors, and implements the key to winning by defeating slowness with speed.
Advantages and intelligence complement and synergy. In future wars, combat operations in space, network and other fields will be deeply integrated into the traditional battlefield space, requiring higher standards and higher requirements for planning and design of the overall combat situation. Only by clarifying the complementary relationship of advantages in various combat domains and the proportion of input and effectiveness, and then sorting out the operational relationship of cross-domain coordination, can we bridge the gap in field operations and achieve complementary advantages on the multi-dimensional battlefield. In essence, this is also a concentrated reflection of the view of war efficiency. From another perspective, in a war, when the local advantage of the battlefield is not obvious or there is a hidden crisis, by gaining local advantages in other fields to make up for it and achieve comprehensive advantages, the overall goal of winning can also be achieved. In the future information-based and intelligent wars, this point will be more prominent and more complex, requiring comprehensive measures in the fields of military, politics, public opinion, legal theory, psychology, diplomacy, etc., and leveraging each other to fully release the maximum combat effectiveness; requiring traditional forces and new forces to work closely together, relying on the network information system to build an integrated combat system, and maximizing overall effectiveness through advantage synergy.
Transition to Dynamically Coupled Autonomous Collaboration
In the era of artificial intelligence, along with the profound changes in information technology and weapons and equipment, combat operations place more emphasis on breaking up traditional force groupings, connecting traditional platform functions, breaking traditional offensive and defensive boundaries, and achieving full-time dynamic control of combat operations through dynamic coupling and autonomous coordination.
Dynamic focal point coordination. In future wars, the enemy-to-enemy confrontation will be more intense, and the battlefield situation will be more changeable. The previous static, extensive, and step-by-step coordination methods will be difficult to adapt. It is necessary to pay close attention to the key nodes of the operation. On the basis of keeping a close eye on the overall situation, anchoring the combat mission, and focusing on the combat objectives, we must assess the situation and seize the opportunity. According to the predetermined coordination rules, we can flexibly change the coordination objects, flexibly adjust the coordination strategies, and autonomously negotiate and coordinate actions. It should be noted that this coordination method based on key combat nodes particularly emphasizes that combat forces transcend structural barriers and organically aggregate combat effectiveness. Through the flexible structure of the collaborative organization, self-coupling and autonomous elimination of contradictions and conflicts, bridging combat gaps, and promoting the precise release of the combined forces of the combat system.
Dynamic control and coordination. The battlefield situation in future wars is changing rapidly, and the combat process is often difficult to advance according to the predetermined combat plan, and combat operations have great uncertainty. Invisibly, this also requires us to break through traditional combat thinking, keep a close eye on the changes in the battlefield situation, and implement immediate, flexible and autonomous coordination of the combat process. This collaborative method, through real-time assessment of battlefield situation changes, the degree of damage to enemy targets, and the scale and efficiency of combat operations, can achieve rapid command and control, precise coordination in force projection, fire support, and comprehensive support, and always grasp the initiative on the battlefield. This collaborative method requires relying on advanced intelligent auxiliary means to quickly divide the combat phase, predict the duration of combat operations, analyze the overall deployment of combat forces, calculate the allocation of combat operation resources, and accurately control the decision-making cycle and combat rhythm, and accurately coordinate the actions of troops and the combat process to ensure that various randomness and uncertainties in combat can be effectively dealt with.
Dynamic response coordination. The operational mechanism of future wars is unpredictable. The deep effects of asymmetric operations, hybrid games, and system emergence will inevitably lead to various emergencies in the implementation of the planned operational plans. To this end, dynamic coordination for emergencies is an effective strategy to resolve the above-mentioned contradictions. This coordination method emphasizes the dynamic adjustment of coordinated actions according to different situations. When an emergency occurs on a local battlefield or in a local action, which has little impact on the overall operation and has sufficient time, the combat system automatically responds, partially adjusts the combat deployment and combat operations, and ensures the achievement of the expected combat objectives. When multiple urgent and slow situations coexist on the battlefield and partially affect the battlefield situation, the combat actions are dynamically and immediately coordinated according to the principle of first urgent and then slow according to the specific situation, so as to promote the development of the war in a direction that is beneficial to me. When there are multiple major unexpected situations or unexpected changes in the overall development of the war situation, coordination is carried out according to the principle of first major direction and then minor direction, and new coordinated disposal measures are quickly generated to effectively respond to various emergencies on the battlefield.
