Posted on 07/11/2005 12:21:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Swarms of unmanned, robotic airplanes may one day form the first attack wave against enemy defenses, using technology successfully demonstrated at Edwards Air Force Base.
These twin aircraft, more closely resembling big lawn darts than the traditional airplane, are matching versions of the experimental X-45A.
Built by The Boeing Co., they are the first phase in the Air Force's contribution to the Pentagon's Joint Unmanned Combat Air Systems program.
The program is intended to demonstrate capabilities for unmanned air vehicles to work together in coordinated attacks against enemy air defense systems, working in areas deemed too dangerous for manned aircraft.
The X-45 began as a joint project with the Air Force and Boeing, joined by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Two years ago, it was combined with a second, similar project started by the Navy, Northrop Grumman Corp. and DARPA to form J-UCAS.
The first of the stubby aircraft began flying at Edwards Air Force Base in 2002, joined later by the second X-45A.
A T-33 trainer airplane, modified to flight-test the vehicles' systems in a manned aircraft, completes the fleet.
"We've been able to accomplish a lot" in the last three years, Boeing chief pilot Rob Horton said.
The two experimental airplanes demonstrated their capability for operating together, something never before accomplished with unmanned aircraft.
A single pilot on the ground is responsible for both aircraft in the air, although "they really fly themselves," Horton said. "The pilot on the ground gives the big-picture management."
Ground control gives the aircraft approval for take-offs and landings; in between, the airplane is virtually on it own as far as flying is concerned.
While the human pilot is involved in the tactical aspects of an X-45 mission, the aircraft itself takes care of the "administrative" work such as flying headings and maintaining proper airspeed and altitude.
The aircraft is capable of pulling together various intelligence to detect targets, decide which to hit and determine which vehicle in the group is in the best position to carry out the attack based on position and available fuel and ammunition.
"All that is done on the airplane, with them communicating a game plan" between multiple aircraft, Horton said.
That game plan is then sent to the pilot in control on the ground, who decides whether or not to approve the attack plan. Once approved, the aircraft can execute the plan themselves.
The airplanes are autonomous in that they are given a pre-programmed area in which to fly, then may respond to threats and situations within that area, Horton said.
The benefit, aside from keeping the human pilots out of harm's way, is that it creates a system of multiple bombers using a single pilot, he said.
In a flight earlier this year, the X-45 launched a mission from Edwards and climbed to cruising altitude, before transferring control of the aircraft to a unit in Seattle, using satellites to beam the controls over the horizon.
"That's the primary focus of the X-45A, the ability to control it from several nodes," Horton said.
As a former Air Force weapons system operator, Horton came to the project with plenty of experience in manned bombers, but none in unmanned vehicles.
"I though it would just move the cockpit to the ground," he said. "That's not what we're doing at all."
While the airplanes take care of flying, the human pilots on the ground are engaged in top-level mission management, he said.
That role is reflected in the displays of the control unit, which have evolved with the flight test program as extraneous displays were discarded.
It now more closely resembles a battle management center than an airplane cockpit, Horton said.
The unmanned bombers are not created to replace any existing weapons systems, but to complement the manned force and fill gaps in coverage, Boeing spokesman Bill Barksdale said.
While they are capable of changing priorities in the midst of a mission to react to changing circumstances, they are not completely free of human intervention.
"We're not just sending something out and letting it go," he said.
The X-45As are expected to wrap up their flight tests this summer, making way for the next phase in the program, the X-45C.
Three of these larger, more robust aircraft will be built for the next phase.
The first is already under way, with completion scheduled for 2006 and the first flight in 2007 at Edwards Air Force Base.
These aircraft will employ stealthy characteristics to avoid radar detection and will be capable of speeds nearing Mach 1. They will also be capable of traveling longer distances.
These new aircraft will also take advantage of further advances in the software that runs them.
"It's an interesting place we're at right now," Barksdale said.
"As cool as it looks, it's all about brains. It's all about the software."
With changes to the software, the vehicles are designed to be flexible enough to evolve to meet changing scenarios, Horton said.
The Al Gore Plane?
Weren't they banned by the Clinton Administration?
{sigh} . . . 'fraid so . . . or something similar.
Wow!
The fact that multiple aircraft can communicate, plan and coordinate an attack, and fight as a unit is far beyond the scope I pictured.
Smart, small, hard to detect, and fearless...Tough combination.
Got to be an improvement over the robot-VP-candidate.
Sounds like they achieved what Hitler and the V-2 tried years ago.
Let's just all pray it doesn't run on Windows.
All hell is going to break loose once SkyNet takes over control of the nuclear arsenal.
On second thought: mmmmmmm, Cylons .....
mission-critical stuff is very, very different!
"The unmanned bombers are not created to replace any existing weapons systems, but to complement the manned force and fill gaps in coverage, Boeing spokesman Bill Barksdale said. "
Riiiiight. And a shortage of qualified pilots (read as: somebody capable of pulling 23 g's and live) isn't a "gap in coverage".
The next generation of fighter/bomber "pilots" is currently being trained by Sega and Nintendo.
On the bright side, the days of having to limit the capabilities of an aircraft to what a human can withstand are numbered. Soon, the task of these aircraft builders will be to build an aircraft that a joystick jockey on the ground cannot rip the wings off of.
Comments upthread about Skynet and Cylons have sufficiently covered the dark side of the argument. Taking human control completely out of the loop is truly a frightful thought.
In ten years manned aircraft will be obsolete.
Weren't they banned by the Clinton Administration?
After some kids ground the tip of one down to a needle-sharp point, and tossed it back and forth over a fence hitting another kid in the head and killing them.
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