THE FUTURE OF AIR POWER: NEW AGE OF AUTONOMOUS JET FIGHTERS ON HORIZON.

AuthorMagnuson, Stew

The scenario military thinkers propose would double the number of jet fighters in a typical battle formation from four to eight. But instead of the additional aircraft being identical to an F-35 joint strike fighter, or F-15E Strike Eagle, they are low-cost, unmanned jets.

One might carry extra air-to-air missiles. Another may only have a sensor suite to boost situational awareness for the pilots in the traditional aircraft.

Whatever their payload, the enemy has to contend with double the number of targets on their radars. They have multiple "dilemmas" in front of them, giving U.S. forces an asymmetric advantage.

Further, shooting down one of the U.S. aircraft or jamming its communications links would not completely degrade the battle formation.

This scenario is part of a larger concept that has emerged from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency called "mosaic warfare." Like a real mosaic that creates a picture out of smaller pieces, battlefield commanders can take disaggregated capabilities, sometimes in the form of low-cost, expendable robotic systems, to make life complicated for opponents.

'What does a platform have to do? It has to sense. It needs to communicate. It needs to defend itself. It needs to do data processing," Jim Galambos, a DARPA program manager in the strategic technology office, said in an agency podcast.

"What if we disaggregate? What if I took the sensing function and put it on an unmanned system so it can be farther away?" It could be higher in the air to obtain a better angle of the battle. Or there could be multiple sensing platforms and angles, he said.

"Adversaries are pouring lots of money to go after single platforms that are high value.... Do I go after one of the sensors? I might get one but not all. And by the way, the main aircraft or ship is still going," Galambos said.

Like a mosaic, the whole idea is to bring many pieces together through automation and communications links. If a few pieces are lost, "you still get the picture," he said.

Or the pieces can be rearranged to tell a different story. Commanders can re-compose them and execute a different mission.

Mosaic warfare is an attempt to bring together unmanned systems and manned systems, he said. Such systems are linked today but aren't truly working together as a team.

Making this concept a reality in air warfare will require autonomous jets, a technology that is feasible now, experts said.

Kratos Defense, for example, has invested its own...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT