How to crack the so-called "anti-intervention/regional denial" strategy in China? This is a problem that has worried the US military for many years. According to the traditional idea of Pentagon , it is necessary to develop stealth missile with longer ranges and more advanced performance and sixth-generation fighter . It is hard to say whether the effect is good, but the price is definitely more expensive.
However, the US magazine "MIT Technology Review" recently revealed that the Pentagon has actually secretly invested in another path. A huge "super bee swarm" unmanned combat project is hidden in the US military's new fiscal year budget report. It is hoped that with the experience of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the help of algorithms such as artificial intelligence , use thousands of cheap drones to "do everything on the battlefield."
In the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, low-cost small drones, including consumer-grade quadrotor drones, reflect their own value. They widely participate in reconnaissance, guide artillery shooting, destroy tanks, and other tasks, and even perform suicide attacks as consumables. This is very different from the traditional idea of using drones in the United States.
"MIT Technology Review" magazine found that the US military is actually not that stubborn, and can only focus on developing high-performance weapons to meet future challenges. The report said that an ambitious, previously undisclosed "super swarm" unmanned combat plan is hidden in the Pentagon's hundreds of pages of budget documents, consisting of multiple projects aimed at overcoming the technical difficulties of "swarm" drone "its scale far exceeds ever before."
The key to the so-called "bee swarm" drones is not that the number of drones is large, but that they must form an organized group like "bee swarm". For example, the drone light show that is common at various celebrations. Although hundreds or thousands of drones often perform complex flight actions, in essence, each drone just flies along a pre-designed route, and they lack interaction with each other. The "swarm" drones need to sense their surroundings during flight, understand how far they are, and use algorithms to avoid obstacles. More advanced versions also use artificial intelligence to coordinate tasks, such as expanding searches or performing synchronous attacks.
In fact, the US Navy has achieved the coordinated flight of 30 "bee swarm" drones as early as 2017. But if this technology is to be promoted on a large scale, there are still many problems. The various projects in the "Super Bee Swarm" plan are specifically targeted at these issues.
First of all, "bee swarm" drones generally have problems with small size and insufficient range. According to the relevant budget, the U.S. military’s “Deployment and Use of Autonomous Remote Systems” project attempts to overcome this challenge. The project is ready to use large drones to act as "aircraft carriers." Although the U.S. military has previously tested using larger drones to carry and launch one or two small drones from the air, the new project aims to transport and launch "extremely large numbers" of small drones without human intervention.
Secondly, another problem faced by "swarm" drones is "cost". Because it is often used as a consumable, it needs to be cheap enough to be deployed in large quantities. Currently, the cheapest "backpack portable drone system" of the US military is priced at US$49,000. It is still too expensive to use it as a consumable that launches hundreds or thousands of consumables and is "discarded after use". The "large-scale manufacturing autonomous system" project planned by the US military will use 3D printing and digital design tools to manufacture large quantities of low-cost drones, and often produce tens of thousands of drones. They can also quickly modify designs on the same platform to optimize for different task purposes.
"Super Swarm" program also includes more complex command and control systems designed to make it easier for humans to cooperate with "swarm" drones and give "swarm" drones more autonomy. If communication interference or bandwidth limitations are encountered during the mission, and decision-making instructions cannot be obtained from human operators, the "swarm" drone will gain the ability to operate independently. It will make redecisions based on the collected information, such as when new threats are discovered, it can change routes or send drones to identify them.
If these designs can be realized, the US military's future "super swarm" drone will be quite terrifying - thousands of "swarm" drones carry different combat payloads, including sensors for reconnaissance missions, jammers for electronic suppression missions or other electronic warfare equipment, and carry ammunition for long-distance flights, conduct detailed reconnaissance of large-scale targets, and identify and attack targets.
reported that budget documents show that these "swarm" drones are seen as one of the main solutions to the "anti-intervention/regional denial" strategy, which is the most troublesome problem for the US military at present. "Even if the opponent's air defense system can shoot down dozens or hundreds of drones, there are still thousands of drones that can break through the defense line regardless of losses. They are enough to destroy air defense radars and other defense systems and pave the way for attacks of cruise missiles , manned fighter jets and other traditional weapons."
However, American drone expert Peter Singer believes that the "super swarm" plan may not necessarily become a "war winner" because military researchers from various countries are already studying ways to deal with "swar" drones. "Every weapon must have a restraining method, the problem is just how reliable and effective the latter is." The methods contemplated by the outside world to combat "swarm" drones include lasers, microwave weapons or large-scale electronic interference.
"Swarm" drone cluster launch video released by China Electronics Technology Co., Ltd.
In addition, in addition to the United States, countries are also developing similar "Swarm" drones. For example, in 2020, China Electronics Technology verified the ability of land-based launches and air-dropping fixed-wing drone "swarms" to carry out various missions such as ground investigation and precision strikes. The unmanned opportunity of China's "bee swarm" at this Zhuhai Air Show will not bring new surprises, let's wait and see.
Source: Privy Council No. 10
