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05 Jan 23. China’s Naval Mothership for Aerial Drones Appears on TV. China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, appears to have put an unusual catamaran drone mini-carrier into service as part of an experimental naval training force.
[ In May 2021 we reported that China looks to have launched an odd mini-aircraft carrier of sorts that is intended to launch and recover small aerial drones earlier this year. A model of this catamaran vessel appeared at the Zhuhai Airshow, where it was ostensibly described as a platform for mimicking enemy “electronic” systems during training exercises. -Ed.]
Footage of what appears to be the training ship was included in a short segment broadcast on Chinese state television station CCTV-7 recently about what is described as a “Navy Experimental Training Base,” according to a machine translation. CCTV-7 is focused on news about the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Overall, the segment shows various land-based and maritime training and/or test and evaluation activities involving shore-based systems, surface warships, and submarines, with a clear emphasis on naval countermeasures and other shipboard self-defense systems.
The b-roll running in the background during the CCTV-7 segment includes two brief and distinct clips showing what appears to be the forward flight deck of the catamaran drone carrier. Though a full view of the ship is never given, a number of very unique features are visible that are similar if not identical to those seen on a model of the vessel that the state-run China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, or CASIC, had on display at the 2021 Zhuhai Airshow. These include two large anchor line reels at the bow and five landing pads for drone helicopters.Interestingly, one of the two clips that CCTV-7 included in its segment today shows the helipads marked with circles with the Latin letter “H” in the center, while the pads in the other look to be unmarked. This would seem to indicate that the two videos were taken at significantly different times.
This may also raise a question about whether the PLAN has more than one of these ships, though this seems less likely. There have been no indications one way or another that a second one was launched after the first was last year.In addition, a number of the uncrewed helicopters seen in both clips shown on CCTV-7 are of a distinctive tandem-rotor design, a relatively uncommon configuration for uncrewed rotorcraft, which was showcased along with CASIC’s model of the catamaran training vessel at Zhuhai last year. These are readily identifiable by a bar underneath one end of the fuselage with what has looked to be a radiofrequency signal emitter of some kind installed on either end. Their portly fuselages would provide space for additional mission systems.
These drone helicopters may be a variant or derivative of the ZC Aviation ZC300, which the PLA has at least evaluated in the past as a way to transport small cargoes. ZC Aviation’s website, which does not appear to have been updated in any significant way since 2020, shows additional versions configured for agriculture and fire-fighting work, but none for obvious military use. This drone was reportedly developed in cooperation with Hainan Tropical Ocean University, and there was talk in the past about the possibility of equipping examples with laser-imaging sensors and small radars ostensibly for “oceanic observation research.”
The clips also show another tandem-rotor drone helicopter design that looks to be similar in size to the possible ZC300-based type, but that has a much more stripped-down, open-framed design. (Source: UAS VISION/The Drive)
06 Jan 23. SA Landward force seeking UAVs. The SA Army plans to acquire unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for reconnaissance and target acquisition according to a now closed Armscor tender. Documentation issued for tender ECAC/2022/154, including specifications for BBBEE (broad-based black economic empowerment) run to 42 pages but do not make mention of how many UAVs the landward force is looking to add to its equipment store.
As expected for reconnaissance purposes the UAV sought is not a large one with a maximum take-off weight of 9kg and an endurance of 55 minutes. The tender further doesn’t specify whether a single propeller or multi-rotor platform is wanted to provide data to ground-based stations for targeting solutions or other actions.
The UAV operator must be able to “work” his platform from a maximum unobstructed distance of 15km. He or she will use an external battery with a 7,6 voltage rating to provide power while the UAV’s built-in battery should be a 18650 lithium ion one with a 17v power rating and 135 minute charging time. Expected battery endurance is two hours 30 minutes for the UAV mounted one and four hours 30 minutes for the external ground station one. The landward force previously indicated a need for UAVs to work in the border protection tasking Operation Corona.
As far as is known Defence Intelligence (DI) operates an unknown number of Denel Seeker UAVs. At the time of publication Armscor had not made known any successful bidder for the SA Army UAVs. (Source: https://www.defenceweb.co.za/)
05 Jan 23. Drone advances in Ukraine could bring new age of warfare. Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare.
The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers.
That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven. But there are no confirmed instances of a nation putting into combat robots that have killed entirely on their own.
Experts say it may be only a matter of time before either Russia or Ukraine, or both, deploy them.
“Many states are developing this technology,” said Zachary Kallenborn, a George Mason University weapons innovation analyst. “Clearly, it’s not all that difficult.”
The sense of inevitability extends to activists, who have tried for years to ban killer drones but now believe they must settle for trying to restrict the weapons’ offensive use.
Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, agrees that fully autonomous killer drones are “a logical and inevitable next step” in weapons development. He said Ukraine has been doing “a lot of R&D in this direction.”
“I think that the potential for this is great in the next six months,” Fedorov told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
Ukrainian Lt. Col. Yaroslav Honchar, co-founder of the combat drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka, said in a recent interview near the front that human war fighters simply cannot process information and make decisions as quickly as machines.
Ukrainian military leaders currently prohibit the use of fully independent lethal weapons, although that could change, he said.
“We have not crossed this line yet – and I say ‘yet’ because I don’t know what will happen in the future.” said Honchar, whose group has spearheaded drone innovation in Ukraine, converting cheap commercial drones into lethal weapons.
Russia could obtain autonomous AI from Iran or elsewhere. The long-range Shahed-136 exploding drones supplied by Iran have crippled Ukrainian power plants and terrorized civilians but are not especially smart. Iran has other drones in its evolving arsenal that it says feature AI.
Without a great deal of trouble, Ukraine could make its semi-autonomous weaponized drones fully independent in order to better survive battlefield jamming, their Western manufacturers say.
Those drones include the U.S.-made Switchblade 600 and the Polish Warmate, which both currently require a human to choose targets over a live video feed. AI finishes the job. The drones, technically known as “loitering munitions,” can hover for minutes over a target, awaiting a clean shot.
“The technology to achieve a fully autonomous mission with Switchblade pretty much exists today,” said Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, its maker. That will require a policy change — to remove the human from the decision-making loop — that he estimates is three years away.
Drones can already recognize targets such as armored vehicles using cataloged images. But there is disagreement over whether the technology is reliable enough to ensure that the machines don’t err and take the lives of noncombatants.
The AP asked the defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia if they have used autonomous weapons offensively – and whether they would agree not to use them if the other side similarly agreed. Neither responded.
If either side were to go on the attack with full AI, it might not even be a first.
An inconclusive U.N. report suggested that killer robots debuted in Libya’s internecine conflict in 2020, when Turkish-made Kargu-2 drones in full-automatic mode killed an unspecified number of combatants.
A spokesman for STM, the manufacturer, said the report was based on “speculative, unverified” information and “should not be taken seriously.” He told the AP the Kargu-2 cannot attack a target until the operator tells it to do so.
Fully autonomous AI is already helping to defend Ukraine. Utah-based Fortem Technologies has supplied the Ukrainian military with drone-hunting systems that combine small radars and unmanned aerial vehicles, both powered by AI. The radars are designed to identify enemy drones, which the UAVs then disable by firing nets at them — all without human assistance.
The number of AI-endowed drones keeps growing. Israel has been exporting them for decades. Its radar-killing Harpy can hover over anti-aircraft radar for up to nine hours waiting for them to power up.
Other examples include Beijing’s Blowfish-3 unmanned weaponized helicopter. Russia has been working on a nuclear-tipped underwater AI drone called the Poseidon. The Dutch are currently testing a ground robot with a .50-caliber machine gun.
Honchar believes Russia, whose attacks on Ukrainian civilians have shown little regard for international law, would have used killer autonomous drones by now if the Kremlin had them.
“I don’t think they’d have any scruples,” agreed Adam Bartosiewicz, vice president of WB Group, which makes the Warmate.
AI is a priority for Russia. President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that whoever dominates that technology will rule the world. In a Dec. 21 speech, he expressed confidence in the Russian arms industry’s ability to embed AI in war machines, stressing that “the most effective weapons systems are those that operate quickly and practically in an automatic mode.”
Russian officials already claim their Lancet drone can operate with full autonomy.
“It’s not going to be easy to know if and when Russia crosses that line,” said Gregory C. Allen, former director of strategy and policy at the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
Switching a drone from remote piloting to full autonomy might not be perceptible. To date, drones able to work in both modes have performed better when piloted by a human, Allen said.
The technology is not especially complicated, said University of California-Berkeley professor Stuart Russell, a top AI researcher. In the mid-2010s, colleagues he polled agreed that graduate students could, in a single term, produce an autonomous drone “capable of finding and killing an individual, let’s say, inside a building,” he said.
An effort to lay international ground rules for military drones has so far been fruitless. Nine years of informal United Nations talks in Geneva made little headway, with major powers including the United States and Russia opposing a ban. The last session, in December, ended with no new round scheduled.
Washington policymakers say they won’t agree to a ban because rivals developing drones cannot be trusted to use them ethically.
Toby Walsh, an Australian academic who, like Russell, campaigns against killer robots, hopes to achieve a consensus on some limits, including a ban on systems that use facial recognition and other data to identify or attack individuals or categories of people.
“If we are not careful, they are going to proliferate much more easily than nuclear weapons,” said Walsh, author of “Machines Behaving Badly.” “If you can get a robot to kill one person, you can get it to kill a thousand.”
Scientists also worry about AI weapons being repurposed by terrorists. In one feared scenario, the U.S. military spends hundreds of millions writing code to power killer drones. Then it gets stolen and copied, effectively giving terrorists the same weapon.
To date, the Pentagon has neither clearly defined “an AI-enabled autonomous weapon” nor authorized a single such weapon for use by U.S. troops, said Allen, the former Defense Department official. Any proposed system must be approved by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two undersecretaries.
That’s not stopping the weapons from being developed across the U.S. Projects are underway at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, military labs, academic institutions and in the private sector.
The Pentagon has emphasized using AI to augment human warriors. The Air Force is studying ways to pair pilots with drone wingmen. A booster of the idea, former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, said in a report last month that it “would be crazy not to go to an autonomous system” once AI-enabled systems outperform humans — a threshold that he said was crossed in 2015, when computer vision eclipsed that of humans.
Humans have already been pushed out in some defensive systems. Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield is authorized to open fire automatically, although it is said to be monitored by a person who can intervene if the system goes after the wrong target.
Multiple countries, and every branch of the U.S. military, are developing drones that can attack in deadly synchronized swarms, according to Kallenborn, the George Mason researcher.
So will future wars become a fight to the last drone?
That’s what Putin predicted in a 2017 televised chat with engineering students: “When one party’s drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender.”
(Source: C4ISR & Networks)
05 Jan 23. On Nov. 10, 2022, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) flew the first production MQ-9A Multi-Domain Operations (M2DO)-ready variant of the U.S. Air Force MQ-9A Reaper. This upgraded version of the MQ-9A Block 5 remotely piloted aircraft, also known as a the “-25,” includes key features that will enable future integration and fielding of Open Mission Systems (OMS) as well as new sensors that will further expand the MQ-9A Reaper’s strategic reconnaissance capabilities.
Features of the new “-25” include improved power distribution and redundancy, GPS improvements, radar altimeters, nose wheel steering, and angle of attack (AoA) sensor system improvements.
The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Marine Corps will both receive these improved MQ-9A Block 5 “-25” M2DO-ready aircraft under current contracts; however, the total number of aircraft receiving these improvements has not been released.
“We’re excited to position the MQ-9A enterprise for new missions through these capabilities,” said GA-ASI Vice President of USAF Programs Claudia Mowery. “Future funding could potentially expand these capabilities to the entire MQ-9A fleet.”
05 Jan 23. Baykar Plans to Make Supersonic Variant of Unmanned Fighter Jet Kizilelma. Turkish drone magnate Baykar plans to make a supersonic variant of its unmanned fighter jet, the Bayraktar Kizilelma, the chief technology officer (CTO) of the company said.
Selçuk Bayraktar was speaking on the features of Kizilelma, Türkiye’s first indigenously developed and produced unmanned fighter aircraft, during a broadcast.
Kizilelma will be able to fight against warplanes, Bayraktar said, besides, its cruising time is several times longer compared to Baykar’s latest drone, the Akinci unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), he said.
“We even plan to make a supersonic variant,” Bayraktar noted.
The National Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle System (MIUS), named Kizilelma (Red Apple), with low detectability and hypersonic speed, is an extremely critical and strategic project by Baykar whose battle-proven combat drones already attract great attention worldwide.
The uncrewed fighter jet is projected to conduct a multitude of military actions, such as strategic offensives, close air support (CAS), missile offensives, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD).
It is projected to be capable of flying for five hours and reaching speeds of up to 800 kph (500 mph or Mach 0.64).
‘New Baykar story’
Bayraktar further said that following Kizilelma, they are to start their space-related initiative and that they have goals to achieve for the next five to 10 years.
“Our aim is to develop a communication and global positioning system with low orbit constellations, as well as to develop orbital transfer vehicles,” he said.
Bayraktar said that they started the space initiative about six months ago and that “a new Baykar story will emerge from there.” (Source: ASD Network)
03 Jan 23. New in 2023: Here comes the first-ever surface drone fleet.
Send in the sea drones! Er, or the “unmanned surface vehicles,” in the preferred Big Navy nomenclature. Either way, 2023 should see the USN stand up its first ever unmanned surface fleet by the end of the summer.
While the Navy and the U.S. military in general spent much of 2022 focused on the European theater following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, not to mention the whole China situation, the Navy’s drone arm has been quietly hard at work in the Middle Eastern waters of U.S. 5th Fleet testing and developing all types of drone platforms.
Task Force 59, stood up in September 2021 to oversee the effort, has in roughly the past year operated surface drones in area waters for more than 25,000 hours, and the Saildrone Explorer in particular logged 220 consecutive days at sea with no refueling or maintenance.
“The pace of innovation is amazing,” Capt. Michael Brasseur, TF 59′s commander, said in a statement. “We are challenging our industry partners in one of the most difficult operational environments, and they are responding with enhanced capability, fast.”
Fifth Fleet held a three-week unmanned and artificial intelligence integration event called Digital Horizon in November, which a command press release billed as a crucial step to integrating new drones ahead of the unmanned surface vessel fleet’s standing up next summer.
Such efforts seek to improve what the U.S. and partner navies can see above, below and on the surface of the water.
“By harnessing these new unmanned technologies and combining them with artificial intelligence, we will enhance regional maritime security and strengthen deterrence,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, 5th Fleet’s commander, said in a statement. “This benefits everybody.”
The Digital Horizon exercise in November involved 15 different systems, 10 of which were operating among 5th Fleet for the first time.
The event involved two unmanned vertical take-off and landing systems, as well as a bevy of surface drones. (Source: C4ISR & Networks)
03 Jan 23. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) and Bharat Forge Limited, India have announced a partnership to manufacture main landing gear components, subassemblies, and assemblies of remotely piloted aircraft. Part of the Kalyani Group, Bharat Forge is the largest repository of metallurgical know-how, design and engineering expertise, and manufacturing prowess in India. With over five decades of experience in manufacturing a wide range of high-performance, critical safety components, Bharat Forge offers full-service supply capability from concept to product design, engineering, manufacturing, testing, and validation.
“GA-ASI is eagerly looking forward to working with Bharat Forge in the critical field of aerostructure manufacturing,” said Dr. Vivek Lall, Chief Executive, General Atomics Global Corporation. “Bharat Forge’s expertise in the field of forging is known globally, and their outstanding contributions in the aerospace sector has inspired us to work together for building the next generation of the world’s most advanced unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Mr. Baba Kalyani, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharat Forge Limited, said, “Aerospace is a high ‘Technology Intensive’ domain, which relies on Product Integrity, Reliability, and Zero Defect.’ This is a culture by itself and demands a strong focus on people and processes. As part of our Aerospace Growth Strategy, our collaboration with GA-ASI is a strong testimony of our culture in Bharat Forge Aerospace to assimilate and demonstrate the same, as partners to General Atomics, in making India Atmanirbhar.”
Bharat Forge Limited has a state-of-the-art, digitally integrated manufacturing, assembly, and testing facility for aerospace components and systems. It manufactures structural and engine parts and subsystems for aircraft and engines for both civil and military applications. Its impressive portfolio includes aircraft turbine and compressor manufacturing; high-end aero engine components like blades, discs, and shafts; and airframe components, including aircraft landing gear, in keeping with the latest technology and design trends, while maintaining high quality standards.
GA-ASI is confident that its collaboration with Bharat Forge will result in significant capability-building for both companies and provide an impetus to the Indian large, unmanned aircraft industry.
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