For 'a secret " it's all been out there
2 new secret combat drones are in the works, Air Force secretary says
"The disclosure is the strongest indication yet that the service is banking on autonomous weapon systems to give it an edge in the increasingly fierce military competition with China. . .
The Air Force Research Laboratory and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc., completed the successful fourth flight of the XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator, a long-range, high subsonic unmanned air vehicle, at Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., in January. AR/UAV can be launched from a relocatable containerized rocket-assisted takeoff assembly and recovered on its return by means of a parachute. USAF program is expected to be a family of fighter jets and unmanned aircraft. It is set to replace the F-22 stealth fighter in the next decade.
Many in the aerospace and defense industry were surprised the loyal wingman concept was not funded in the Air Force’s fiscal 2022 budget request.
The delay in initiating the programs may be a result of some rethinking about how such an aircraft might be deployed, , , including launching it from another aircraft. . .
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The Air Force will seek funding to develop a pair of classified combat drone programs next year that are designed to operate alongside fighter planes and bombers, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told POLITICO.
“I’ve got two that I’m going to have in the ‘23 budget in some form,” Kendall said in an interview at the Reagan National Defense Forum on Saturday. “They’re both unmanned air combat vehicles, unmanned platforms that are designed to work in conjunction with fighter aircraft like [the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter] or F-22 or the F-35. On the other hand they work in conjunction with bombers like the B-21.”
He said the existence of the programs will be disclosed formally in the budget request, which will go to Congress early next year, but the details will be secret.
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The Promise of Skyborg
By Col. Mark Gunzinger, USAF (Ret.) who is the director for future aerospace concepts and capabilities assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and Lukas Autenried, senior analyst at the Mitchell Institute. The full report can be found at www.mitchellaerospacepower.org.
Over the next decade, the U.S. Air Force must find a way to maintain readiness, modernize its aging aircraft inventory, and grow to 386 operational squadrons. The reasons are clear: Threats are on the rise, and U.S. leaders need new options empowered by next-generation combat air forces with increased capacity. A flat or declining defense budget could deprive the Air Force of the resources it needs to pull off this balancing act and force harmful compromises that increase the risk of mission failures. . .
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Reusable. Unlike cruise missiles, which are destroyed as they create their desired effects, these multi-use systems can be recovered and then flown again. The XQ-58A Valkyrie A/R UAV can be launched from a relocatable containerized rocket-assisted takeoff assembly and recovered on its return by means of a parachute. A second example: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Gremlin A/R UAVs, which aim to be launched and recovered in-flight by appropriately equipped C-130s.
- Low-cost. By leveraging novel and agile manufacturing, modular components, and small and advanced turbine engines, the Air Force aims to greatly reduce the cost and time to manufacture A/R UAVs—as little as a few weeks compared to the 18 months it can take to build a manned fighter. With unit costs of a few million dollars to $20 million, depending on size, range, payload, and mission systems, A/R UAVs will cost a fraction of what it costs to operate a manned fighter, and they will never require depot-level maintenance.
- Modularity. The Air Force’s intent is to field a family of A/R UAVs that share an adaptable open architecture and a “plug and play” design philosophy to execute multiple missions. This modularity will drive down costs, support rapid technology insertion, and allow for in-theater mission changes, such that a system configured with sensors for ISR missions could be quickly reconfigured to conduct electronic attacks or strikes should operational needs change.
- AI-enabled. AI technologies will make A/R UAVs more capable than existing systems, said Gen. James “Mike” Holmes, then the head of Air Combat Command. “The low-cost, attritable aircraft we’ve been looking at will be more autonomous than the RPAs we fly now,” he told Air Force Magazine last spring. “We’ll give it goals, and we’ll tell it about its operating environment, we’ll prioritize targets and actions for it, and, through machine learning, we’ll teach it to make more decisions on its own.”
The Air Force’s Skyborg program is one of three Air Force “Vanguard” science and technology (S&T) programs that are prototyping and experimenting with new weapon systems and operating concepts to “deliver remarkable new capabilities that provide warfighters with superior advantages in the battlefield.” Vanguard status prioritizes Skyborg’s institutional and warfighter support with an eye toward ensuring the autonomous A/R UAV program survives the so-called acquisition valley of death.
Affordable Combat Power
After decades of budget cuts, the Air Force’s combat air forces now lack the capacity to fight a major conflict with a peer adversary such as China, deter threats in other regions, defend the U.S. homeland, and meet other demands articulated in the National Defense Strategy. This includes the ability to attain the air superiority needed to enable joint operations, launch large-scale precision strikes into contested areas, and perform electromagnetic warfare (EW). Recognizing these limitations, a comprehensive Air Force study mandated by Congress concluded the service must grow by about 24 percent—from 312 to 386 operational squadrons—to execute its requirement at a moderate level of risk.
Achieving “The Air Force We Need” will require the Department of Defense (DOD) and Congress to break from traditional resource allocation practices and prioritize Air Force investment to acquire 5th generation F-35s, B-21 bombers, and other advanced aircraft along with this family of low-cost A/R UAVs, which will be most effective when teamed with manned systems. This combination would help create a future force that is more lethal and survivable, and also has combat mass needed to defeat great power aggression. If fielded in large enough quantities, U.S. commanders could simultaneously use A/R UAVs in multiple areas of the battlespace to degrade an enemy’s combat tempo, overwhelm air defenses, and prevent it from concentrating forces.
Responding to A2/AD Threats
Attacking an enemy’s military airbases is one of the most efficient ways to suppress an opposing air force. China and Russia both have thousands of long-range guided missiles that can crater runways, destroy fuel storage and maintenance facilities, and otherwise wreak havoc on U.S. airbase facilities. Large-scale missile attacks such as these on U.S. and allied airbases in the Indo-Pacific and Europe could severely degrade the Air Force’s ability to generate the hundreds of sorties needed to rapidly halt a Chinese or Russian attack.
While there is debate inside the Air Force on how best to adapt warfighting concepts and capabilities to counter this growing missile threat, the ultimate solution will require generating and projecting power from both inside and outside an enemy’s A2/AD threat envelope. Each has inherent advantages, and the benefits of harnessing both approaches are considerable. The Air Force must develop new operating concepts and capabilities to ensure it can continue to fight alongside allies and partners that live inside A2/AD umbrellas.
A/R UAVs that can launch and recover from dispersed expeditionary locations without the need to use an airfield would be an invaluable component of this solution set. The ability to disperse and relocate these aircraft would complicate adversaries’ ability to find, fix, track, and launch effective missile attacks against USAF combat forces. It would also impose new costs on rivals: Instead of concentrating their attacks on a few main operating bases, China and Russia would have to fly more ISR sorties and expend more weapons to find and attack USAF operating locations dispersed across a theater. This would also create uncertainty about their missiles’ effectiveness, and could cause China or Russia to doubt if their campaigns would succeed.
Air-transportable containerized A/R UAVs and their launch systems also would improve USAF resiliency under attack, reducing the logistics footprint required to sustain operations. A recent RAND Corporation study determined that A/R UAVs like the XQ-58A Valkyrie could require “one-fifth the personnel and one-half the equipment” to operate and maintain compared to an F-16 fighter. That translates into only 25-35 percent the number of C-17 airlift missions to deploy the assets, depending on what XQ-58A materiel is prepositioned in a theater. A/R UAVs with ranges of 3,000 nm or more that can launch and recover closer to the joint operating area could also help reduce USAF’s aerial refueling requirements, freeing tanker capacity for other high-priority combat operations.
Operational Risk, Survivability, and Resiliency
In conflicts with a peer adversary, there may be areas of the battlespace where there is significant uncertainty about threats or the risk of attrition is simply too high to use manned aircraft. A/R UAVs would expand theater commanders’ options for highly contested environments. On night one of a conflict with China or Russia, U.S. commanders could use hundreds of A/R UAV variants to locate enemy air defenses, jam air defense command and control nodes, and conduct other missions to improve the survivability of U.S. forces. According to Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Logistics Will Roper, Skyborg UAVs will “allow the Air Force to take measured risk with attritable platforms to keep our high-value aircraft in the fight.” Later, as threats are reduced, commanders could shift to using more higher-end A/R UAVs and manned aircraft for operations in contested areas.
To maximize the combat value of A/R UAVs, it may be more cost effective to use them to multiply the kinetic effects that can be created by other combat aircraft that have greater payload capacity, as estimated payloads range from 600 to 1,200 pounds—equivalent to two to four GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs.
Appropriately equipped A/R UAVs, however, could help backfill USAF’s shortfall in electronic warfare capacity, enhancing the survivability of all U.S. forces within A2/AD envelopes. Using A/R UAVs as remote sensors in contested areas would reduce the need for manned penetrating aircraft to emit radar energy, which can give them away to enemy defenses. Decoy A/R UAVs could be used to stimulate enemy surface-to-air-missile (SAM) systems, causing them to reveal their locations and exposing them to USAF strikes. A/R UAVs equipped with jammers or high-power microwave payloads could conduct electromagnetic attacks on enemy acquisition radars, C2 links, and other air defense components, increasing the survivability of U.S. stealth aircraft and weapons penetrating contested areas.
A/R UAVs should also be explored as part of the Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance family of systems to enable air superiority for U.S. forces. A/R UAVs teamed with manned and unmanned aircraft could increase formations’ overall situational awareness and air-to-air weapon capacity. Leveraging these capabilities, A/R UAVs could help protect aerial refueling tankers and other non-stealth high-value airborne assets, conduct sweeps to defeat enemy fighters that could threaten USAF penetrating strikes, and escort penetrating bombers and fighters.
A/R UAVs would also help create a more heterogeneous future force that is less predictable and more capable of distributed operations. Using many A/R UAVs to conduct highly distributed active and passive sensing operations in contested areas would make USAF’s ISR force more resilient and challenge enemy defenses; instead of targeting a relative few high-value manned ISR aircraft, such as the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and E-8 Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), adversaries would need to defeat hundreds of individual A/R UAVs to degrade U.S. commanders’ battlespace awareness.
Likewise, A/R UAVs could help disaggregate today’s monolithic kill chains, creating “kill meshes” consisting of hundreds of sensors, shooters, and C2 nodes. Each A/R UAV could observe and share sensor data throughout the mesh, enabling penetrating and standoff shooters and other weapon systems as needed. These kill meshes would enable 5th-generation F-35s, B-21s, and other manned penetrators to search for mobile, relocatable targets over larger areas in contested environments.
Finally, this more heterogeneous force with AI-enabled autonomous UAVs would be less predictable, complicating adversaries’ ability to quickly assess and understand the intentions of U.S. commanders, and enabling those commanders to conduct highly distributed, simultaneous offensive operations to overwhelm their adversaries’ capacity to react and defend. Enemies’ defensive challenges would be further complicated by their inability to discern A/R UAVs from manned fighters and bombers, causing them to use high-end defenses to engage lower-end targets.
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“These will be acknowledged classified programs,” Kendall explained, “but I am going to try to get them started in ‘23.”
Why it matters: The disclosure is the strongest indication yet that the serviceis banking on autonomous weapon systems to give it an edge in the increasingly fierce military competition with China.
“Investing in unique and highly capable unmanned aerial vehicles is something people not only expect, but is indicative of the fact that the Air Force is exploiting the technologies out there to give it a decisive technology edge,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, the former deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance who now runs the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, an industry-backed think tank.
What might they be: One possibility is the Air Force may finally be doubling down on a “loyal wingman” program, a drone that relies on artificial intelligence to fly alongside piloted aircraft and take on missions that may be too dangerous for human fighter pilots. The service previously invested in a program to prove out the idea called Skyborg.
The Air Force awarded 24-month demonstration contracts for the Skyborg project in December 2020 to Boeing, General Atomics and Kratos.
Another consideration is the U.S. may collaborate with Australia and the UK, which are pursuing their own similar programs. Boeing is spearheading the effort in Australia, while Northrop Grumman has been tapped for the UK project.
A hot ticket: Kendall said the prep work for both new programs is already underway. “I will be doing things to try and get them ready to go,” he said. “We will be able to use study money and some science and technology money to set the stage for that.”
Deptula also expects fierce competition for both programs, given how much the unmanned aircraft industry has expanded and the limited number of new high-dollar Pentagon platforms.
“The number of players has expanded dramatically in the unmanned aerial vehicle space,” he said. “It is not just the big five. There are many, many other corporations out there that can play a role. I am sure the Air Force looked at the capability that exists throughout industry. The UAV industry is one that is expanding, not contracting.”
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Skyborg: the US Air Force’s future unmanned wingman
// The Valkyrie drone could become an unmanned wingman to the F-35. Image: US Air Force
Finger four has been the dominant fighter aircraft formation since the 1930s. The world’s most advanced fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-35, costs around $100m per jet. Four of these in formation means almost half a billion dollars of hardware in the air (not including the per hour cost of flying them). Losing just one fighter would be catastrophic for the US Air Force’s budget.
The US Air Force’s (USAF) project Skyborg aims to address this cost risk by replacing some of these expensive fighter jets with more affordable unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) acting as unmanned wingmen.
Teaming up with drones
Under the project, the Kratos-built XQ-58 Valkyrie drone will team up with the F-35 and F-15EX, cutting the number of highly valuable fighters in the air, as well as cutting costs and risk to human life. At a cost of a few million dollars per unit, the autonomous Valkyrie drones are more easily replaceable, and could play a central role in the USAF’s future air power. The F-35 is billed as a force-multiplier; when partnered with a Valkyrie it could get a new capability boost.
Skyborg program manager Ben Tran explained the significance of the program: “There is heavy investment by our near-peer adversaries in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy in general. We know that when you couple autonomy and AI with systems like low-cost attritables, that can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for our air force. The 2023 goal line is our attempt at bringing something to bear in a relatively quick time frame to show that we can bring that kind of capability to the fight.”
With Skyborg the manned aircraft is the centre of the network, with the drones augmenting around it. Think of the fighter as Skynet and the Valkyrie UCAV as the T-100, only with added wings and less Arnold Schwarzenegger. AI will govern the autonomous wingman, reading telemetry, flight plans and weather, all the while acquiring targets and supporting the manned aircraft.
Project Skyborg uses the Kratos-built XQ-58 Valkyrie drone. Image: US Air Force
Cultural questions facing the air force
If an autonomous combat drone is to act as a wingman who pulls the trigger? The US, UK, and Russia have pushed against the UN trying to ban autonomous killing machines, which gives a clue to where the Pentagon is currently leaning.
With the adoption of autonomous systems becoming imminent, armed forces will need to confront serious ethical issues . . .
The US Air Force has not said it plans to give the Skyborg drones control of any weapons systems, but this co uld be regarded as the natural evolution of the system in the future.
“We will need to get the person trained to have an instinct for AI just like they have an instinct for stealth.”
Human pilots know how to fly with other humans, operating with fundamentally similar instincts. An autonomous vehicle does not have these same instincts. This means the US Air Force will need to figure out how to train pilots to work with AI.
As Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dr Will Roper, told Defense News: “We need to understand when the machine will be at its best and when the human will be at its best. We will need to get the person trained to have an instinct for AI just like they have an instinct for stealth.”
Automation tends to shake up every industry it touches, and the military is no different. To deal with this inevitable disruption, the air force will need to assess how far autonomous capabilities can go in complementing the existing and proven use of manned fighters. As the technology evolves the question may evolve from how autonomy can complement fighter jets to whether it should replace them.
Future upgrades to the F-35 could include the integration of AI capabilities. Image: Lockheed Martin
Breaking through technological barriers
The F-35 is still in production, but is due for upgrades in 2020, which could open doors for the integration of AI integrating systems such as those developed under Skyborg. Both Lockheed Martin and Boeing are already working with the military to bring AI into their fighter platforms.
Air Force Research Lab aerospace systems directorate engineer Matt Duquette explained the scope of the system: “Skyborg is a vessel for AI technologies that could range from rather simple algorithms to fly the aircraft and control them in airspace to the introduction of more complicated levels of AI to accomplish certain tasks or subtasks of the mission.”
A major issue to solve is getting the AI up to speed. Skyborg requires more advanced systems than are currently available on the market. The system not only has to be more sophisticated than any AI available now, but also has be developed for a world that understands how it works. If the AI is too predictable, it is easily to beat, rendering it useless in a combat setting. . .While current AI cannot match the instincts of seasoned pilots, current research and investment trends across the military sector show a clear trend towards automation. With projects such as Skyborg pushing the limits of capability, it won’t be long before we see autonomous aircraft take to the skies, be it in a defensive or offensive capacity:
Russia and China also are developing their own wingman drones.
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