French Neuron drone (right) flew in concert with the Rafale carrier-based aircraft.

  Russian "hunter" drone.

  South Korea's unmanned wingman.

  Recently, South Korea announced an unmanned wingman system, which attracted the attention of the outside world. At present, except South Korea, Russia, the United States, Türkiye, France and other countries are developing unmanned wingmen and accelerating the pace of coordinated combat with fifth-generation aircraft.

  As an emerging military equipment, the drone is changing the form of war. It not only represents an important trend in the evolution of drone technology to the main technologies on the battlefield, but also indicates the development direction of coordinated combat between man-unmanned systems. Unmanned wingman is favored by world military powers due to its low cost and high efficiency. What is its current technological development status and can it meet the actual combat requirements? This article provides an in-depth analysis of this.

  A new focus of the development of air combat technology

  Unmanned wingman, as the name suggests, refers to an unmanned aerial vehicle that can fight in concert with manned fighters. It usually has certain autonomous capabilities and can perform a variety of tasks such as reconnaissance, strike and electronic warfare. Compared with traditional drones, drones emphasize interaction with manned aircraft to enhance overall combat effectiveness.

  The saying of unmanned wingman first appeared at the end of the 20th century and appeared with the widespread use of drones on the battlefield. However, the concept of unmanned wingman in the true sense was proposed by the US military in the early 21st century. In 2016, the US Department of Defense launched the "Loyal Wingman" program, intending to use artificial intelligence technology to enable drones to cooperate with fifth-generation aircraft operations. The development of unmanned wingman has gone through an evolutionary process from simple remote control to autonomous flight. The early drones were mostly remote-controlled aircraft, mainly used for reconnaissance and other operations. Entering the period of information warfare, the application of drones has expanded to areas such as precision strikes and intelligence collection. In recent years, with breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sensor technologies, drones have shown a trend of miniaturization and stealth. Miniaturization + stealth allows drones to have stronger survival and combat capabilities in high-threat environments. At the same time, communication sensors and artificial intelligence algorithm chips are equipped on the unmanned wingman, which enables them to respond quickly and diversify tasks in complex battlefield environments.

  At present, countries with unmanned wingman R&D capabilities or have deployed related systems are mainly some countries with leading military technology. In this field, the US military is ahead. The US military's "Loyal Wingman" project has entered the verification stage, which means that the aircraft model is gradually mature. The "Loyal Wingman" project developed in Australia and Boeing will achieve its first flight in 2020. Russia launches the "Hunter" drone, planning to cooperate with the Su-57. The French "Neuron" drone will cooperate with the sixth-generation aircraft jointly developed by France and Germany. In addition, Türkiye and South Korea have also launched drone projects or representative aircraft models. The above situation shows that unmanned wingmen have become the new focus of the development of air combat technology.

  Evolving towards a multi-functional combat platform

  Judging from the technological development trend, the role of unmanned wingmen in future wars is diverse and irreplaceable.

  As an integral part of human-unmanned coordinated operations, the emergence of unmanned wingman greatly expands the flexibility of air combat. Under the command of manned fighters, drones can go deep into the enemy air defense zone to perform reconnaissance, interference and strike tasks. This tactic that combines the decision-making capabilities of manned aircraft with the execution capabilities of drones not only keeps pilots away from danger, but also improves combat efficiency.

  The drone can also act as an "ammunition depot" for manned fighters, providing firepower support to the latter. When a drone carries a small-diameter bomb or air-to-ground missile, it can provide fire support to manned aircraft. At the same time, drones also perform well in electronic warfare and bait missions, disrupting enemy signals or dispersing enemy air defense firepower by carrying electronic jamming equipment or simulating radar signals from manned aircraft.

  Judging from the development of the multi-country drone project, the technology of unmanned wingman has made significant progress. For example, the US military's "loyal wingman" has the ability to plan dynamic routes and assess battlefield damage, and can complete tasks in an environment with limited GPS. The Russian "Hunter" drone emphasizes stealth and heavy strike capabilities, and plans to carry anti-ship missiles or air-to-air missiles, becoming a powerful supplement to the Su-57 fighter. Australia's "Loyal Wingman" project focuses on modular design and can quickly switch task loads to adapt to battlefield needs. The above technological progress reflects the evolution of the unmanned wingman from a single combat platform to a multifunctional combat system.

  Technical bottlenecks limit combat effectiveness

  Although drones have shown great potential for combat application, their development faces several technical bottlenecks. First, the maturity of autonomous technologies needs to be improved. Although artificial intelligence gives drones a certain amount of independent decision-making capabilities, in a complex and changeable battlefield environment, autonomous decision-making algorithms that support the operation of artificial intelligence technology may make mistakes due to the lack of sufficient data. The US military's "cooperative combat aircraft" was misjudged during the test, highlighting the limitations of artificial intelligence in the actual environment. Second, communication reliability needs to be strengthened. In electronic warfare or strong interference environments, the communication data link between the drone and manned aircraft may be interrupted, resulting in a decrease in the effectiveness of coordinated operations. Third, stealth technology increases the design cost and maintenance difficulty of drones, which is undoubtedly a major obstacle for countries with limited budgets.

  Technology advances help solve the above problems. On the one hand, the application of big data and machine learning provides opportunities to improve the autonomy and reliability of drones; on the other hand, low-cost manufacturing technology provides the possibility to reduce the production costs of drones. For example, the US military’s “Copyer” plan is to adopt a low-cost strategy to achieve the production and deployment of large-scale cheap drones.

  In the future, the development of unmanned wingman will be systematic, intelligent and high-energy. Systematization means that the unmanned wingman will integrate with more combat platforms to form a swarm or multi-level collaborative combat network; intelligence is reflected in the further improvement of autonomous capabilities, which may achieve completely unmanned combat decisions; high-energy refers to more advanced power systems and weapons and equipment, such as laser weapons or hypersonic missiles. This development trend does not mean that drones will replace manned aircraft, and their combat status still tends to be auxiliary roles rather than main combat forces.

  As an important innovation in modern military technology, unmanned wingman has shown strong combat advantages. At the same time, its technical bottlenecks such as insufficient autonomy and communication fragility remind people not to overestimate the combat capabilities of drones. With the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and manufacturing technology, unmanned wingmen are expected to make greater progress in intelligence and systematization, and their combat capabilities will also be verified in actual combat. (Di Wenchao)

[Editor in charge: Wang Jinzhi]