AI Taking Over Aerial Combat So Pilots Move Up to Command Drone Air Wing

DARPA is automating air-to-air combat, enabling reaction times at machine speeds and freeing pilots to concentrate on the larger air battle and directing an air wing of drones.

Dogfighting will still be rare in the future but it is part of AI and automation taking over all high-end fighting. New human fighter pilots learn to dogfight because it represents a crucible where pilot performance and trust can be refined. To accelerate the transformation of pilots from aircraft operators to mission battle commanders — who can entrust dynamic air combat tasks to unmanned, semi-autonomous airborne assets from the cockpit — the AI must first prove it can handle the basics.

The vision is AI handles the split-second maneuvering during within-visual-range dogfights and pilots become orchestra conductors or higher level managers over large numbers of unmanned systems.

Each Human Fighter Leading an Air Wing of Drones and Robotic Missiles

DARPA wants mosaic warfare. Mosaic warfare shifts from expensive manned systems to a mix of manned and less-expensive unmanned systems that can be rapidly developed, fielded, and upgraded with the latest technology to address changing threats. Linking together manned aircraft with significantly cheaper unmanned systems creates a “mosaic” where the individual “pieces” can easily be recomposed to create different effects or quickly replaced if destroyed, resulting in a more resilient warfighting capability.

SOURCES – DARPA
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com

32 thoughts on “AI Taking Over Aerial Combat So Pilots Move Up to Command Drone Air Wing”

  1. DARPA should not exist and has done more damage to cultures, societies and all living things that can not be undone than any other entity on earth.

    Since these people are tied through secret societies around the world and the concept of fighting the “Bad Guys” has been a fraud for several hundred years as America was founded by those of the Occult (Read Manley P. Hall’s “Initiates of the Flame” original copy from the internet archive library as well as Albert Pike’s “Morals and Dogma” as well as the translations of the Talmud and Kabbalah) founders of a network of Zionist Freemasonry (History of Zionism 1600-1918 by Nahum Sokolow). UK, USA, USSR, Red China and the rest share information through Stone Ghost intelligence network which is available to all nations.

    Only a fool, without a wit of wisdom could support what these people have done and what they are doing along with thousands of other organizations, think tanks, NGOs, academia…

    Not one war was ever fought by the US for defense but all on offense (Smedley P Butler’s “War is a Racket” – War Industries Board and affiliates of WWI) and the writings of George Patton “We fought the wrong nation and people” (WWII a contrivance to kill through incendiary burning and utter destruction of Japan and continuing of Germany while lying to the public about everything (Look at Gomberg Map of 1941 and the US/USSR/UK plant to divide up the world)).

    NATO needs to cease to exist (see Globalresearch.ca).

  2. Preachin’ to the choir. I’m a veteran of 1980s cold war now working in a broken down depot. Sequester is still killing us. Not enough money to replace our old equipment. It’s a long slow process recovering from years of neglect.

  3. Silly :-), no pain – as in nothing hurts because every part of your body is in optimal shape.
    I was using the term IQ here as synonymous with intelligence. Which of course it’s not. Please forgive me I didn’t mean to confuse you. 🙂
    Recent research has shown that the brain is still developing long into adulthood. But it would not matter even if it was not. Using genetics we could make it develop as we please. DNA is truly like a blueprint that can be revised. Tear a wall out here, reinforce a wall there, Add a wall over there, etc. Anything can be done using genetic engineering.
    That is what the science fiction writers were trying to tell us with their living/biological space ships. Using living matter you could make a radio transmitter and receiver. Examples electric eels make thousands of volts. I don’t know if its been scientifically proven but some people claim they pick up radio signals through their teeth. The researchers are now talking about building biological computers.

  4. Please reread or at least read once. And don’t twist my words or take them out of context. You accidently(??) dropped the word “ALMOST” when you quoted me.

  5. There is no question they would become so addicted they would starve, if they had access to those drugs.

  6. Only the military and veterans know how important that is. The rest of our society thinks it’s terrible to give anything to our military let alone support them.

  7. Life extension is one thing, but after you are an adult, I would not count on genetic engineering to raise IQ. Your brain is already formed…it is not magically going to transform. Implants might do something. 5X or 6X? What is that supposed to mean? There is no 0 IQ, so 500 IQ if there were a such thing is not necessarily 5X 100 IQ, just as a temperature of 40 degrees is not twice as hot as 20 degrees unless it is degrees Kelvin. And the distance between IQ points may not be the same either. One chess player may be 2000 Elo and another player 1000 Elo, but that 2000 Elo player knows closer to 10,000X more about chess than the 1000 Elo player rather than 2X. And a 2500 Elo player may know 100X as much as the 2000 Elo player.
    Ending pain? There are people without pain. One lady has a unique version that is better than the more common version. The common one people injure themselves and become a walking wreck of half healed injuries and scars and damaged joints. She has that, except that she heals well with very little scaring: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/healing-powers-no-pain-mutant-gene-scotland-a8842836.html

    The low scaring is very nice, but I don’t think I would want zero pain. You can’t avoid a lot of things. No quick reaction when something is burning you. Everyone would be walking around with injuries everywhere. Athletes may push themselves too hard and do all sorts of damage…

  8. the most successful wars are those that do not burst and the enemy’s population and army are on your side (need, necessity, hopelessness, hope), the change of government is then a matter of time

  9. Having the best stealth technology will give us a bit of breathing room to counter the coming changes if we invest and take advantage of the lead that we currently have.

  10. From an email I sent to a former colleague nine years ago:
     
    F-22s are great but, frankly, we can expect the cockpits to be ripped out of most of the ones we have, long before their life-cycle ends.
     
    This is because the time will come when an F-22 pilot and his wingman have to consider punching out when they see a dozen UAVs coming at them. UAVs being half their size, and able to pull at least twice their acceleration with the same weapon load, will be bad enough. Now factor in that, at 2% the cost of the F-22s, and with no human lives in the balance (on their side), these things will be aggressive as hell and quite willing to collide with an F-22 whenever possible. Capable of being launched from trucks hidden in caves for years, requiring only video game skills to operate, they will be able to rise from anywhere in enemy territory at any time, and potentially in great numbers.

    Forget controlling the enemy airspace, some strategy based on managing it will probably replace the doctrine of “controlling” it, at least until directed energy weapons are capable of hitting anything in the sky that is over the horizon.
     
    Our best chance is to hit UAV technology hard and push it. Our fighter pilot dominated Air Force leadership most emphatically does not want to do this. Making sure they don’t drag it out unnecessarily is an excellent cause for you and your organization.

  11. So a big quantity of “ordinary”-frame Kratos XQ-58s is the way to go. It would be even better, I guess, if they made it smaller. Like Boeing Saab GLSDB.

  12. I have to correct myself. I think, his project must be financed from non-government organisations only, because the use of intellectual property of the project can be monitored easily, I guess. So, interested people or banks must buy IP rights from him, but it doesn’t happen and I don’t understand why. $2 million is not a big sum anyway. As I wrote, federal government take much more money from people than that every year: $4500 billion / 320 million = $14000. For a group of 10 million people financing his project would cost only $5 from each. So, I suppose, people just don’t know about him and, yeah, banks are corrupted by big pharma companies, I guess…

  13. You may wish to reconsider a 20G airframe. It will be extremely heavy. Just because you take a person out of the airframe doesn’t mean the airframe can pull more Gs. For example: the F-15 is 9G rated. You pull more than 9Gs, and we have to roll back an engine for inspection of mounts. Pull more than 10Gs and we roll back both engines, depanel half the aircraft and spend 3 days inspecting. Had a student snatch the stick back during a roll and ripple a wing on an F-15. Pilot was just fine, had to replace the wing.

    Designing a 20G airframe would mean new materials, new design and tolerance specs, years and years of testing for durability and wear of various components at 20G loads. Avionics have to be stressed, cables, connectors, fuel lines, engine blades, hell even the engine frame to make sure it doesn’t flatten under 20Gs and break fan or turbine blades. 20Gs means entirely new technology.

    Could you design a 20G airframe? Sure. And you’d see this airframe actually fly maybe in the 2040s and more likely in the 2050s.

  14. virtue? Not a very good term to use here. For example courage and loyalty are considered by humans as virtues. But they are the most basic instincts for a carnivorous pack animal. They help a pack survive.
    How much virtue does a ant or cockroach have?
    Man constantly demonstrates empathy for other species(with exceptions). Which other species does the same to the degree man does? True wisdom seems to be a trait of intelligence.

  15. America is close to paradise on Earth. We live better than 93% of the rest of the world. Why do you think we have such a problem with almost everyone wanting to come here?
    It would seem that a lot of the people that live in paradise don’t realize it. Why else would they rock the boat over politics?

  16. The difference in intelligence found in the smartest human and a average human is not enough to prove or disprove whether wisdom and intelligence go hand in hand.

    A ant has more wisdom than a virus. A dog has more wisdom than a ant. A monkey has more wisdom than a dog and finally a man has more wisdom than a monkey.
    Hopefully with a 5X or more increase in intelligence wisdom will follow.

  17. With intelligence comes wisdom. I am hoping we will be smart enough not to develop a AI with self awareness. We are on the edge to being smart enough now, with that boost we will certainly be smart enough to stop the development.

  18. Yes, I was hoping Draco would go somewhere. DARPA did fund it initially, but after it proved it could work, commercial funding never materialized. None of the big companies wants to do anything about it, as they all have too much to loose. And the small company plans are generally to develop something that makes a big company want to acquire them, and they get their big payday. But if they know the big companies are not interested…

    Broad spectrum antivirals are going to happen. Just likely not in the US where all the big companies stand to loose a lot of money. But they are going to loose anyway, may as well make their own or go in with Rider. Who knows, they might already be sitting on cures. They got exactly what they wanted for HIV. Take their pill and live a long life, don’t, and you are dead.

    Hong Kong is the front runner. This should have been one of the biggest stories of the year, but I doubt many people saw this: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-01-hong-kong-scientists-broad-spectrum-antiviral.html

  19. I was wondering when someone would mention Alpha. I believe Alpha was limited to human G limits on the planes it controlled, which would make it a candidate as a virtual pilot paired with a mission commander in a single seat fighter.

    We still haven’t gotten serious about design UCAV’s that fly harder than humans can take, and the requisite engineering and support systems to make it happen. For example, engines that can ramp at will and be used inverted for very long periods, airframes rated for 20G+, etc.

  20. tensor flow training bot… probaply below 200 euro… (trained for free on google cloud).

  21. Years ago game bots allready Beated American fighter pilots, and that was before neural networks where a big thing, now it be verry easy to create a dogfighting plane or drone. why use pilots ? people were not made to fly.

  22. Sure, but being biologically immortal is useless if you get attacked by a rogue AI army.

  23. Drones are the perfect way to participate in active radar, without revealing the location of the mother plane. Low power available for radar at the drone is offset by multiple drones spread far apart.

  24. Sounds interesting. Hope it works out.
    Pushback from Big Pharma will be huge.

  25. No sarcasm.

    The USA federal government spend more than $4.5 trillion a year. Yet they couldn’t find mere $2 million for Dr. Todd Rider and his universal DRACO Antiviral project, for instance. I even wouldn’t know about him, if not Mr. Wang! What do they show you on TV, huh?

  26. Won’t be long before humans won’t be able to survive the battlefield once they adopt drones designed for the ground theater as well.

  27. Wrong! A utopian future has begun. Soon due to genetic engineering there’ll be no disease, hunger, pain, old age etc. And when I say soon, I mean soon. There are at least 3 clinical trials in humans using genetic engineering going on now. They are now offering genetic engineering for pet dogs. A dog’s drug/therapy only takes 1 year for FDA approval, so research on dogs is surging forward. Much of that dog research will be applicable with modifications to humans. You can even buy cheap genetic engineering kits on ebay for your own personal experiments. The two little girls in China who had their genes changed so they can resist AIDS also got a boost in their IQ.
    Of course the greatest advancement of all is when they enhance EVERYONE’S IQ with a single shot/treatment. And when I say enhanced. I am talking a factor of 5X or 6X or more.

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