[HN Gopher] Manned fighter to face autonomous drone next year
___________________________________________________________________
Manned fighter to face autonomous drone next year
Author : onewhonknocks
Score : 59 points
Date : 2020-06-07 18:06 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thedrive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thedrive.com)
| saltedonion wrote:
| I don't see how this will work in a real battle. If the ai is
| fully self contained with no communication to central command,
| then it's like a dumb missile. Once you press fire, you've lost
| control.
|
| If the drone does require connectivity to central command, then
| shouldn't it be fairly easy to jam this signal?
| varjag wrote:
| Radio spectrum is vast, and you need to focus your jammer
| energy on the narrow bands used in actual communication.
| Frequency hopping makes that non-trivial, and that's before you
| consider directed beams and satellite uplinks.
| saltedonion wrote:
| Very interesting
| stoneman24 wrote:
| In addition to frequency hopping, there are spread spectrum
| techniques to smear the signal across a wider range of
| frequencies with lower energy in each frequency. Once asked
| permission to switch on military radio on a project, the
| answer was "go ahead, we'll never notice"
| Zenst wrote:
| If it's like early AI logic, fly as high as possible, say 40km
| which turns out is a higher flight ceiling than the attacker in
| many instances. But the key was the missiles had a ceiling hight
| of say 20 km, though if launched at 40km, they would still work
| upon targets flying upwards and the AI logic wouldn't think of
| them as a threat as those missiles don't work above 20km. Though
| that means they can climb to that height. Also means if they fire
| a missile, it won't climb to hit you. Great tactic using the
| limitations of the missiles to your advantage.
|
| Things like that will be were a pilot will have an early edge,
| pushing those limits by fully understanding the mechanics of
| those limits and how they play out. Be that pushing a sonic boom
| shockwave to effect a small pursing drone. Those for unmanned
| autonomous system will be the achilles heal in much the same way
| early Chess AI was able to be beaten by humans thru not doing the
| obvious most logical move.
|
| But if they want to tune AI for autonomous system, then doing a
| FTP simulator game, running the NPC drones on a server will get
| you lots of unique free testing and tuning of that AI done. Be
| much cheaper and we get a cool game to play.
| spullara wrote:
| That doesn't sound like an AI at all. Sounds like poorly
| written static rules created by a human who doesn't understand
| what they are doing.
| nitrogen wrote:
| The goalpost of what is considered "intelligent" just keeps
| moving.
| amphitoky wrote:
| got more info on those chess games?
| 4636760295 wrote:
| Sounds like someone just made a huge pile of cash by selling
| magic computer codes to the government. Your tax dollars at work.
| taftster wrote:
| I mean, yes. That's how it works. It sounds like you're
| implying that this is a bad thing, a waste of tax dollars and
| government spending. I can assure you, there are plenty of
| other things that the US Gov has wasted money on, probably
| quite a few more egregious than this.
|
| So even if you believe this was wasted spending, at least that
| money will hopefully go back directly to the US economy. The
| military generally prefers to "buy American" when possible, so
| hopefully at least this tax payer money is flowing back to the
| country at some level.
| 4636760295 wrote:
| I would be less bothered by it if someone was building
| something other than killing machines. And I really don't
| care what flag someone waves, nationalism is dumb.
| varjag wrote:
| Plenty people build something other than killing machines.
| And not caring about it is a convenience perspective,
| afforded by circumstance of living in a well-defended
| nation.
| 4636760295 wrote:
| That's what they want you to think. The war machine is a
| jobs program, but they could just as easily spend the
| same money on something more useful like infrastructure
| projects or social programs.
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| Is this incredibly obvious or did I miss the part where they
| specified the rules of the game? I assume they're not actually
| going to have the drone fire actual missiles at the manned
| fighter...right?
| 1e-9 wrote:
| Hits can be simulated.
| [deleted]
| throwaway287391 wrote:
| So it's basically laser tag in the sky? Neat. Is it more or
| less a perfect simulation or is it just enough to get an
| idea?
| ape4 wrote:
| The drone can take way more G-force.
| dghughes wrote:
| So can a missile.
| analognoise wrote:
| A missile isn't generally reusable - they're designed to
| operate at a region of performance within their engines that
| would not even allow for sustained flight.
|
| If it only has to "live" for a few minutes, you can get a LOT
| more performance out of it, which is exactly what they're
| designed around.
|
| But it's a trade-off. You could invest in a (practically)
| infinite supply of global capable missiles to be launched
| from the literal center of America, and to get 24 hour
| coverage you just launch one every 30 minutes. But that's
| extremely expensive and stupid.
|
| But a missile which is carried to be closer to the battle can
| be smaller, and cheaper. Then you need some kind of vehicle
| to get it there. This kind of thing is that vehicle.
| baddox wrote:
| And missiles tend to fair well in combat against manned
| aircraft.
| saberdancer wrote:
| Until it is jammed.
| cheeze wrote:
| Drones can jam missiles.
|
| We can do this all day but I don't think it's helping
| anything.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of it boils down to capital cost vs. operational
| costs vs. capabilities (overall and specialized) vs.
| other considerations like pilot safety. See also just
| about any 4X game.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Just as a heads up, at least on mobile, the site hijacks your
| back button.
| thepangolino wrote:
| Works fine on Safari mobile.
| dsun179 wrote:
| Yes. Hijacked on chrome android.
| pcstl wrote:
| Seems interesting, but all I can think of right now is the video
| game Ace Combat 7.
| _0ffh wrote:
| That was really just a question of time. Wait a few decades, and
| see the first warships specialised for carrying drones and
| missiles (which are essentially kamikaze drones) exclusively.
| rrmm wrote:
| They have them basically just missile frigates with new
| dispensers.
| _0ffh wrote:
| They will probably need a runway, for landing at least.
| rrmm wrote:
| I can think of ways around that, but depends on what sort
| of missions you want to optimize for I guess.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Well, yeah, you could do vertical landing or water
| landing. Both have precedent, but water landing probably
| implies craning the drones on board, which is slow.
| Vertical landing on the other hand might work well. You'd
| still need a flight deck for that, but a much smaller
| one.
| rrmm wrote:
| I guess something helicopter-carrier sized? I would think
| the main thing would be to avoid supercarrier sorts of
| ships. Smaller ships with similar capabilities would mean
| you'd be able to field more groups.
| krisoft wrote:
| No need to wait decades, we have them. They are called missile
| destroyers. Look at the Arleigh Burke-class, or the converted
| Ohio-class submarines.
| _0ffh wrote:
| Those are too small for a sizeable contingent of drones the
| size of small fighter jets. I was thinking along the lines of
| small aircraft carriers.
| krisoft wrote:
| I know you were. What makes a small fighter jet the optimal
| size for these drones? Or what mission do you imagine for
| them?
|
| And about the "sizeable contingent". The Ohio class can
| launch 144 Tomahawks. That is probably enough to suppress
| the air defences of most countries.
|
| Sorry that I'm picking on these details, it's just people
| have a tendency to shriek in horror about the future of
| autonomous weapons, as if we wouldn't be living with them
| already.
| [deleted]
| nmstoker wrote:
| Presumably designers are just scratching the surface jettisoning
| all sorts of current design assumptions that could be removed
| based on differences in the acceptability of loss, ability to
| work cooperatively and handle inhuman conditions. You can
| position the control systems differently, split some of them up,
| strengthen the airframe by binning almost everything from the
| cockpit & getting rid of landing gear completely. The gear adds
| weight and breaks holes in the structure and it's dead weight
| during most of the key operational tasks - instead use a
| cooperating "lander" drone to help it land and the risk of that
| failing isn't as serious without humans. The ability to act with
| coordination across a group of drones that the article mentions
| will be hard to beat unless you use a similar array of drones.
| Seems like the pilot in the plane can't last much longer. Now we
| just need to see if the budgets involved bring this into being
| faster than self driving cars!
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| It could land on its tail.
| dfsegoat wrote:
| Re: ditching landing gear, As I understand it, the Gremlins UAV
| swarm platform uses a 'live capture' system from to
| launch/recover from a C130 - no gear.
|
| You basically turn cargo aircraft into aircraft carriers.
|
| https://www.darpa.mil/program/gremlins
| jointpdf wrote:
| My mental image for this is the Protoss Carriers from
| Starcraft.
| vulcan01 wrote:
| My mental image is the Arsenal Bird from Ace Combat 7 :)
| zizee wrote:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0qqQhgbn0
| sevenstar wrote:
| This also reminds me of the Terminator bridge scene.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkmBWIUT54
| Someone wrote:
| Instead of a lander drone a grappling hook and a soft runway
| might work, too.
|
| See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_Q5CI7p5M and
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Lu6LEQ0zo for inspiration. I
| doubt those landings were healthy for the pilot's back, but for
| drones, and given half a century or so of technological
| development, this might work.
|
| You might not even need the grappling hook. 'Just' stall the
| drone at a height of a few meters, and have it fall onto a
| relatively soft surface. Maybe add a small rocket to soften the
| landing.
| ourmandave wrote:
| I've seen a lot of AlphaZero chess replays where a move seems
| weak. But when you run the lines it's a really sneaky trap or
| very strong combo.
|
| I hope for Maverick's sake aerial combat and chess are two
| different things.
| BatFastard wrote:
| Lets just hope the entrenched pilots don't find some way to
| handicap the drone's ability to keep it "fair". Why the US is
| spending a trillion dollars on the F-35 program is an exercise in
| pork politics.
| analognoise wrote:
| 100% think this is the way this is going to go. For a year or
| two.
|
| Finally the fly boys will realize they're totally outmatched
| and that the F35 will be our last fighter. In my wildest dreams
| it gets cancelled and a bunch of smaller defense companies
| spring up to bring prices way down and competition in the space
| increases. Then overall defense spending goes down and we get
| more money for services - while being still being armed to the
| absolute teeth.
| casefields wrote:
| Whatever happens, I bet it ends up like the Millennium
| Challenge. Contested, with both sides claiming victory with
| caveats.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| "[AI] would be able to make key decisions faster and more
| accurately"
|
| That's a statement nobody here will have problems to accept
| right? I expect nobody can think of any example that makes "more
| accurately" a problematic claim.
| casefields wrote:
| Same stuff we heard with the early self-driving vehicle
| evangelists. Spoiler. It's much harder than they portrayed.
| nbardy wrote:
| I don't think that's the case at all with flight vs vehicles.
| Autonomous driving is complicated because you have to take
| into account a wide range of scenarios and wide range of
| human behaviors, and a complex environment to understand. And
| then make very fuzzy choices on how to react to those
| scenarios.
|
| Combat is a simpler zero sum game, pick and target and
| destroy.
|
| Based on how AI plays top games right now(Starcraft and
| Dota), very fast quick reflexes and pin point accuracy of
| their attacks I think the AI drones are going to crush
| humans.
| blackoil wrote:
| IMO the stakes are different. Often quoted is self driving
| cars must be 10x safer then humans before society accepts
| them. For drones we'll take 10% worse performance, we are OK
| to some extant of misfires particularly in a remote village
| in a 3rd world country. If drones cost 1/10 of a plane it
| will be a obvious answer for any general.
| cheez wrote:
| Any chance these have already been in testing and account for UFO
| sightings recently declassified?
| saberdancer wrote:
| If you are talking about navy videos like tictac and gimbal,
| those videos are probably showing ordinary things through IR
| camera which makes it look strange. Gimbal videos is even named
| "gimbal" as the effect seen in the video is cause due to gimbal
| rotation.
|
| I'm sure US has some kind of secret programme, but I doubt they
| released the videos showing their own top secret programme.
| It's much more likely that they released it to throw a bit of a
| smokescreen and cause their peers like China to expend
| resources trying to research it. They are releasing some kind
| of strange patents as well, that seem to be type of
| pseudoscience which could be a similar play.
| cheez wrote:
| This makes sense.
| simonh wrote:
| The recently declassified 'UFO' sightings have been pretty
| thoroughly debunked as spurious.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfhAC2YiYHs&t=986s
| cheez wrote:
| hmmm, so trained pilots misclassified a bird?
| IdontRememberIt wrote:
| When I am watching Battlestar Galactica or most of the other
| scifi, I am always puzzled to see that the scenarists never take
| AI to fully operate a spaceship (piloting during landing/takeoff,
| firing, targeting enemies, etc).
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Rewatch the mini-series.
| akiselev wrote:
| The series starts right after the Cylons, an artificial
| intelligence created by humans, destroys several planets.
| Decades before they fought another war when the machines first
| rebelled. By the time BSG tolls around, any artificial
| intelligence is taboo and Adama refuses to even enable digital
| communication between ship subsystems except in one scenario
| where they had to hard reset all systems to flush a Cylon
| virus.
| leetcrew wrote:
| to add to this, it's implied (or maybe stated explicitly, I
| forget) that one of the reasons galactica survived the
| initial attack is _because_ it 's an older warship without
| the sophisticated computer systems of the newer ships. the
| newer ships were trivially compromised by the cylons.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| > the newer ships were trivially compromised by the cylons.
|
| No.... Caprica six slept with Baltar who gave her access to
| the defense mainframe. She modified a version of the new
| fleet control system with the vulnerability that allowed
| the cylons to take over the fleet.
|
| Galactica survives because she's a museum ship and would
| never get the update and was built in a time where computer
| systems were not networked inside battlestars. Another
| battlestar (spoilers) survives because it was shut down and
| getting the upgrades.
| 013a wrote:
| There are definitely several lines which suggests that
| Galactica is older than most of the fleet. I recall one
| line where they say something about how everything is
| hardwired, and there's no central computer, or something.
| Something about how it was built during the Cylon wars,
| which was different than the newer ships which were built
| after Cylons weren't a threat so they relied on more
| centralized computer systems.
|
| You can both be right.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| They did have that entire episode where they need to
| network everything together and do the entire "getting
| hacked live" thing.
|
| I forget if there was anything special with the computers
| at that point
| the8472 wrote:
| It's more common in novels and games. But it happens in TV and
| movies too, take HAL 9000 for example. And you also have to
| consider that a lot of scifi shows predate deep learning, so
| it's often referred to as "the computer" instead and AI is
| reserved for AGI, usually with personality and a humanoid
| avatar. In TNG the ship computer handled a lot of routines
| where the crew only provided high level input. It's advanced
| enough to run realistic holodeck scenarios. Stargate Universe
| also had a ship that was mostly run by the computer and made
| decisions that were often inscrutable to the occupants and only
| made sense in retrospect.
| ghaff wrote:
| As others have noted, BSG specifically has internal story logic
| which explains why there isn't AI all over the place on the
| human side. However, more generally, AIs slugging it out,
| probably over great distances, over timeframes that would
| probably be very different (both quick and slow) from a human
| dogfight probably wouldn't be very interesting to viewers
| relative to essentially WWII dogfights in space.
|
| (And, in general, some version of WWII combat (plus lasers,
| etc.) is still the model for most SF--even when it's not very
| deliberately aping it as in the case of Star Wars.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| My only concern is with drones being hacked and turned against
| the deployer.
| adamfeldman wrote:
| Lots of great content on this blog. Relevant here:
|
| "The Alarming Case of the USAF's Mysteriously Missing Unmanned
| Combat Air Vehicles"
|
| https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3889/the-alarming-case...
| Jugurtha wrote:
| I guess they'll be very careful with the objective function, not
| to produce a Kamikaze drone:
|
| - Drone: Less than $10 million.
|
| - Fighter: Almost $100 million _and_ human on board.
|
| It's not far stretched to treat the drone as a new type of
| missile. Air-to-Air, Air-to-Surface, Surface-to-Surface, Surface-
| to-Air, and the new generation: Anywhere-to-Anywhere missile.
| xwdv wrote:
| It will be great if in the future war is simply a function of how
| much money you're willing to spend to destroy a target. Probably
| not much anyone can do to defend against a swarm of drones that
| never gets tired, never misses targets and doesn't even care
| about death.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| Stealth is a 2005 movie that explores this concept. It didn't do
| too well in the box office but I definitely enjoyed it although
| the AI is a little forced.
|
| It looks like the drone in question here is the following (quoted
| from Aerospace Testing International), also mentioned in the
| linked source:
|
| 'The "fighter-sized" 5th Generation Aerial Target (5GAT) is 12.2m
| (40ft) long, a 7.3m wingspan and a maximum gross weight of
| 4,350kg (9,600lb). It is designed to be launched and landed using
| a conventional runway. The drone features two afterburning jet
| engines and a 95% carbon fiber airframe.' It seems to be designed
| specifically to stress test our own flights as target practice
| and doesn't seem like it's actually going to be going into combat
| anytime soon.
| cheschire wrote:
| If you enjoyed that, be sure to check out Macross Plus. The
| rivalry is between a traditional pilot and pilot who controls
| using a neural interface. A little less hand wavey than what
| sci-fi thought AI was 15 years ago.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macross_Plus
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| What's the difference between a Tomahawk cruise missile and a
| drone?
|
| Tomahawk is already (2015) available with reconnaissance camera
| and loiter mode.
|
| Is the distinction that _drone_ can return to base, or otherwise
| land and be reused?
| 1e-9 wrote:
| A Tomahawk is a drone, just not the kind discussed in this
| article. A Tomahawk is subsonic missile designed to attack land
| and sea targets. The drone they are talking about here would be
| able to attack land, sea, and air targets. It would be vastly
| more maneuverable, faster, reusable, have AI specific to air-
| to-air combat, and I assume it would have greater versatility
| in selection of its munitions during an engagement.
| Eridrus wrote:
| A tomahawk is not an anti-air weapon.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > What's the difference between a Tomahawk cruise missile and a
| drone?
|
| With human pilots, there is a bright line separating aircraft
| and missiles (although even that line wasn't completely firm -
| see Kamikazi attacks). Taking the pilot out of the equation,
| that line dissolves into a gradient.
|
| > Is the distinction that drone can return to base, or
| otherwise land and be reused?
|
| That's probably the most useful distinction.
| [deleted]
| JadoJodo wrote:
| I have to wonder when it will switch to small, inexpensive drones
| instead of the larger, jet-type ones. Imagine fighting against a
| swarm of 10,000 drones (each with a small explosive, EMP, etc).
| Similar to the Fire Bats[0] in WWII.
|
| [0] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bat_bomb
| jonas21 wrote:
| There was a discussion on HN a few days ago about classifying
| autonomous drone swarms as WMD:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23423240
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Never. Those things will get burnt by laser weapons if they are
| too small to be efficiently targeted by cannons and missiles.
| They also won't have range, payload for missiles with range,
| etc.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They can be useful for other roles. Surveillance, ECM, flying
| in formation and coordinating to simulate a larger aircraft,
| tricking passive radar sites to go active, etc.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Mainly these two out of your list - surveillance and
| tricking passive radar sites to go active. The former is
| being done today, the latter is being solved by loitering
| munitions that hang around until a site does go active.
| ww520 wrote:
| Would an airship based carrier hosting dozens of drones cruising
| at high altitude become a reality?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's being explored.
|
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/nation/2014/11/10/aircraft-ba...
| MrTortoise wrote:
| most one sided fights ever. Just look at G forces.
|
| drone could have higher max speeds, higher max acceleration.
| fighter was designed ... what 20 years ago?
|
| Cost of drone? Cost of loss of either? total cost of ownership is
| vastly different.
|
| There is real cause to be very afraid.
| airstrike wrote:
| On the flip side, once both sides are just robots, the cost of
| lives is also vastly different...
|
| A thousand years for now, it may be up to Brion Brandd to save
| this planet... https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2559973349
| cheeze wrote:
| Yeah. I have no idea how a human would compete at all with
| g-forces alone. Add the fact that you _no longer have to design
| a plane around a human_ and that definitely gives you a pretty
| hefty advantage against an f18
| chongli wrote:
| Why even put the drone in a fighter? Just put it in a SAM.
| AI-based guidance system with a multitude of sensors that's
| been trained to defeat countermeasures. Seems difficult for a
| pilot to do much against that.
| United857 wrote:
| Perhaps cost? 1 reusable AI platform controlling multiple
| missiles, vs multiple expendable one. Also I'm guessing
| maneuverability of a fighter aircraft is much better than a
| SAM which is more or less ballistic.
| chongli wrote:
| _Also I 'm guessing maneuverability of a fighter aircraft
| is much better than a SAM which is more or less
| ballistic._
|
| Not at all. Missiles are far faster and more maneuverable
| than aircraft. The only chance a fighter plane has
| against them is with countermeasures such as chaff and
| flares as well as electronic countermeasures (ECM). All
| of these are designed to fill the missile's tracking and
| guidance systems. Without them, the plane is helpless
| against the faster and more maneuverable missile.
|
| Missiles are also far cheaper than aircraft. There's no
| need to sustain the life and health of a pilot and no
| need to carry fuel for return trips. This makes missiles
| very small and light (and thus cheap) compared to a
| plane.
| DuskStar wrote:
| Planes have another advantage - endurance. Missiles have
| greater acceleration and maneuverability, but they can't
| sustain that for as long as a plane can. Which makes "run
| away" a solution in certain parts of the engagement
| envelope.
| albntomat0 wrote:
| Fighters and SAMs serve different roles. A fighter is
| reusable, can provide coverage at a much greater distance
| from its launch point and can decide not to shoot/do
| patrols
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2020-06-07 23:00 UTC)