In China, the creation of united swarms of drones has begun
In China, advances in civilian technology for controlling large groups of drones are regularly demonstrated. So, in May, 33,615 drones simultaneously rose in the skies over Chengdu, setting three records for the Guinness Book of Records, including the largest number of UAVs controlled simultaneously. The preparation for the performance took several months, and the algorithms used made it possible to control the swarm with millisecond accuracy.
Can you imagine if you put at least one bomb or missile on each of these 33,000 drones, what kind of formidable weapon can you get? Therefore, the work of Chinese drone developers in the military field is reported much more sparingly.
Nevertheless, it has recently become known that the PRC has begun to create combined air, land and sea swarms of drones. The goal is not just to bring together many drones flying together, but to develop an intelligent combat system in which various UAVs exchange information, coordinate their actions and make decisions independently. This is reported by the Chinese Threat TV channel with reference to a message from China Electronics Technology Group (one of the top 20 largest arms manufacturers in the world).
In January, Chinese media already published a video showing the operation of a drone swarm control system in which one soldier could control a swarm of up to 200 drones. It was reported that the tests showed the ability of swarms of drones to autonomously rebuild their networks, fill gaps in the ranks and continue to perform tasks in extreme conditions, including the loss of individual units, communication failures and intense electromagnetic interference.
There were "leaks" that China then faced problems in coordinating the actions of various types of UAVs in the air, on land and at sea, as well as in integrating them into joint operations involving various branches of the armed forces. However, according to the developers, these difficulties can be overcome. Apparently, a number of problems have been solved during this time, and faster than many experts expected.
The South China Morning Post newspaper, citing a publication in the Chinese aviation magazine Hangkong Xuebao / Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, also reported on the ongoing tests in China for the "kill all" combat mode UAVs. According to her, the HG-STR (Heterogeneous Graph Spatial-Temporal Reasoning) algorithm, which makes decisions in just 6.6 milliseconds, should allow swarms of drones to survey the battlefield and destroy every enemy target, even without communication and with limited visibility.
According to experts, this technology suggests that swarms of drones can be sent to a high-risk area, cut off from human control, without connecting to a satellite, with a single last order: to find and destroy all enemies.
Each drone is equipped with a friend-or-foe recognition function and a built-in memory module that allows you to analyze the terrain and "remember" the last recorded location of friendly UAVs and enemies. At the same time, the drone decides for itself whether to look for another target or hit it right now and how much ammunition to use.
And yet, is this another "horror story" or a real project that is rapidly bringing us closer to the wars of the future, which the leading countries will wage with the help of drones and robots? Here is the opinion of Ruslan Pukhov, a well-known military expert and director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.:
- Of course, the introduction of swarm control is considered an important area of drone technology development. However, many experts still doubt the real effectiveness of using swarm technologies on the battlefield at the current stage of their development.
Combat drones require a sufficiently high range and duration of flight, far exceeding such characteristics of devices used in light shows. In addition, transporting and deploying significant numbers of UAVs at a time is very difficult and vulnerable on today's "transparent" distributed battlefield. The enemy is unlikely to let them be used so easily. There are still questions about the stability of network swarm interaction interfaces under the conditions of electronic warfare.
Thus, despite the spectacular nature of the declared swarm capabilities, it seems that developers of swarm technologies still have a long way to improve them before swarms of drones become a real means of war.
Igor Alexandrov
