Magnificent flesh without a soul. A corpse standing fearlessly over the abyss of its own destruction. A clot of combat matter programmed to destroy anyone whose description matches the "picture" loaded into its memory. The machine knows no pity or fear - a black automatic "ramp" rushes through the unsteady stratosphere, leaving countries and continents under its wing …
There are serious prerequisites for the fact that the profession of "military pilot" will completely disappear by the end of this century. A person is an extra load on board. The robot is smarter, stronger and more courageous than any pilot. In addition, it does not require additional payment for risk and is generally unpretentious when choosing working conditions.
The digital brain does not require an ejection seat and cockpit workspace. He does not need long-term training and regular training to maintain his qualifications: mathematical models and algorithms of behavior in battle are forever loaded into his memory. Having stood for a decade in the hangar, the robot can return to the sky at any time, taking the steering wheel in its strong and skillful "hands".
Machines are tougher than humans. Ten, twenty, thirty hours of continuous flight - the robot demonstrates constant vigor and is ready to continue the mission. Even when the G-forces reach the terrible 10 "same", filling the pilot's body with a lead weight, the digital devil will preserve the clarity of consciousness, continuing to calmly calculate the course and calculate the position of enemy aircraft.
But this is a matter for the near future.
Nowadays, the level of computer technology is not yet sufficient to create fully autonomous "drones". Engineers will have to multiply the performance of computers. And mathematicians and programmers - to solve many applied problems, to build mathematical models of the behavior of machines in air combat and when working on ground targets in an unpredictable combat situation and opposition from the enemy.
In fact, all assault and reconnaissance drones (Predator, Reaper, Global Hawk, etc.) adopted for service are remotely controlled UAVs. All decisions are made by a team of operators who constantly monitor the device. TV cameras and radars installed on board the UAV provide a “presence effect” over the battlefield, without endangering the lives and health of people. And the shift work of operators allows the drone to be continuously in the air for tens of hours.
Remotely controlled UAVs are a long-standing practice in the history of world aviation. Working samples of such systems appeared back in the 30s of the last century, and soon found widespread use in the form of radio-controlled air targets. By the middle of World War II, the Interstate TDR-1 unmanned torpedo bomber, equipped with a 900 kg bomb and a 35 ° viewing angle, was already flying in the United States. It is known about the reliable sinking of one Japanese ship and successful attacks on coastal objects. Nevertheless, the unique program was soon closed down - the Yankees considered that they had enough brave pilots.
Nowadays, remotely controlled UAVs are appropriate only when performing the simplest tasks: surveillance and radar reconnaissance, monitoring the poppy harvest, shooting at the jeeps of the Al-Qaeda leaders in the complete absence of enemy air defense and fighter aircraft.
"Predator and Reaper are useless in a combat environment."
- General Mike Hostage, Chief of Combat Aviation Command, United States Air Force
General Hostage hasn't discovered anything new. Low-speed turboprop UAVs cannot be considered a full-fledged replacement for supersonic fighters. Reaper was designed specifically for low-intensity conflicts, where it is used as a light scout and terrorist hunter.
Heavy reconnaissance UAV RQ-4 Global Hawk
Another thing sounds much more serious: a remotely controlled UAV a priori cannot perform complex stunts and conduct an air battle. The reasons are obvious:
1. Already, to control the RQ-4 Global Hawk scout, a broadband channel with a data exchange rate of 50 Mbit / s is required. The creation of a line for remote monitoring and control of a fighter is an extremely complex technical task. Moreover, such a decision looks irrational due to the influence of the fundamental laws of nature - radio signal delay (UAV - satellite - operator).
2. There is a threat of disruption to the control of the airborne radar by means of the enemy's electronic warfare. And if control interception can be considered as another “urban legend” (256-bit “key”, directional radiation antennas, binding of reliable radiation sources to specific coordinates - thereby the risk of “hacking” is reduced to zero), then signal jamming and “jamming” »UAV control lines can become a real reason for the loss of an expensive device.
Directional antenna for satellite communication SATCOM
The Air Force requires an extremely intelligent machine with the makings of artificial intelligence, capable of independently analyzing the environment, determining the nature of threats, and, if necessary, using weapons for selected targets. Operator intervention will be limited to the confirmation of the authorization for the use of weapons. However, one can do without these flirting with the UN and the liberal community - let the iron monster classify goals on its own and destroy everything. So much the worse for the enemy!
A robot cannot harm a person or, by its inaction, allow harm to be done to a person.
- A. Azimov, "Round Dance"
Old Isaac was deeply mistaken. This will happen very soon - the electronic "eye" will take aim at the person, and the microcircuit will indifferently give the order to attack.
Most of the required technologies exist today.
The Tomahawk cruise missile demonstrates the ability to independently navigate the terrain using relief maps, GPS signals and digitized target images.
Unmanned stealth UAV X-47B landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier in robotic mode.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has conducted a successful experiment to refuel the Global Hawk UAV from another flying drone in fully automatic mode.
X-47B
Robots confidently beat people in chess. In California, Florida and Nevada, self-driving cars are allowed on public roads. The day is not far off when driver's licenses and pilot's licenses will be completely canceled.
Fears about possible failures and accidents are pure profanity. The history of world aviation is littered with the wreckage of aircraft crashed due to the fault of the pilots. In this sense, a robot is much more reliable than a person - he is not inclined to joke and violate instructions. He does not faint from lack of oxygen and is not susceptible to panic in a critical situation. And there are no perfect robots - this is their main similarity with humans.
Statistics of the combat use of the "Reaper". Number of attacks performed. The number of those killed. The main performance characteristics of the strike UAV
Over the past few years, "drones" have overcome several stages of their evolution at once. The robots learned to fly while maintaining their combat formation, independently take off, land, refuel and other complex maneuvers. It remains to embody all the proven technologies in a single design - and boldly go into battle!
British "guardian of heaven"
One of the first owners of autonomous attack "drones" may be the Royal Air Force. It is there, on the shores of Foggy Albion, that work is underway to create a new generation strike UAV, which will surpass in its characteristics all existing models of unmanned aerial vehicles. And it will be able to compete fiercely with manned combat aircraft.
The ideas and dreams embodied in the design of the B-2 Spirit and the promising X-47B rallied in a single impulse to form a masterpiece of scientific and engineering thought called BAE Systems Taranis. A project of an automatic stealth bomber with a strategic range, developed in the interests of the Royal Air Force of Great Britain. According to the plans of the defense company BAE Systems, their new development has every chance to replace a significant part of the attack aircraft fleet. The delivery of the first production vehicles is planned for the 2030s.
A number of large companies were involved in the development of the newest UAV, including BAE, Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation System, as well as the UK Department of Defense itself.
"Taranis" (named after the Celtic god of thunder) is an unmanned aerial vehicle made according to the "flying wing" scheme. During the first flight tests, the takeoff weight was 8 tons. Never before has man created such perfect flying robots: strategic range, supersonic flight speed, stealth technology, but most importantly, for the first time in the world, an artificial intelligence scheme was used on board a UAV! "Taranis" without human help is able to go to a given area of the globe, independently detect and destroy the target. In addition to the shock component, there is an opportunity for reconnaissance and air combat.
Work on the creation of "Taranis" was carried out in 2005, but only now they started talking about it seriously as a machine from the future. The first prototype appeared in 2010. The first flight was scheduled for 2011, but, as often happens, the schedule was disrupted, and "Taranis" disappeared from the public eye for a long time. How many such "projects" are being developed all over the world ?! Only a few of them grow to the stage of the first flight and, in exceptional cases, are adopted for service.
But, as it turned out, the Taranis project did not die. On February 5, 2014, BAE Systems published information about the flight tests of the machine, carried out in high secrecy mode at the Australian Woomera training ground in August 2013. The British are calmly moving towards their goal and will certainly bring their plans to their logical conclusion.
Two points of view prevail among the critics of the new apparatus. The first, quite expectedly, speaks of the inadmissibility of allowing machines to decide human destinies. It is immoral, blasphemous and, to put it simply, dangerous. However, a living pilot is also not immune from mistakes - cases of "friendly fire" and accidental death of civilians regularly occur in any war.
Other experts have expressed doubts about the possibility of a full-fledged replacement of the existing fighter-bombers with Taranis. It is easy to understand by looking at the characteristics of the machines: the thrust of the Eurofighter Typhoon engines is almost 12 tons, while the Taranis is equipped with a Rolls-Royce Adour turbojet engine with a thrust of only 2.94 tons.
However, this problem has nothing to do with the very idea of an automatic UAV. Do not forget that in its current form Taranis is nothing more than a concept demonstrator of new technologies. And it is not known what this drone will turn into by the time it is adopted. For example, in the United States has already announced a program to create a heavy stealth drone X-47C with a combat load of 4.5 tons. Slightly less than that of a typical bomber (despite the fact that we are talking about internal bomb bays - the suspension of ammunition is made without violating stealth).
Everything goes to the fact that sooner or later the sky will be at the mercy of machines. Robots will relieve us of all the hard, complex and dangerous work. And people will fall on their knees before them and bring them tea.
