7 ms·

Presumably designers are just scratching the surface jettisoning all sorts of current design assumptions that could be removed based on differences in the accep

Presumably designers are just scratching the surface jettisoning all sorts of current design assumptions that could be removed based on differences in the acceptability of loss, ability to work cooperatively and handle inhuman conditions. You can position the control systems differently, split some of them up, strengthen the airframe by binning almost everything from the cockpit & getting rid of landing gear completely. The gear adds weight and breaks holes in the structure and it's dead weight during most of the key operational tasks - instead use a cooperating "lander" drone to help it land and the risk of that failing isn't as serious without humans. The ability to act with coordination across a group of drones that the article mentions will be hard to beat unless you use a similar array of drones. Seems like the pilot in the plane can't last much longer. Now we just need to see if the budgets involved bring this into being faster than self driving cars!

dfsegoat 6y ago
Re: ditching landing gear, As I understand it, the Gremlins UAV swarm platform uses a ‘live capture’ system from to launch/recover from a C130 - no gear. You basically turn cargo aircraft into aircraft carriers. https://www.darpa.mil/program/gremlins https://www.darpa.mil/program/gremlins
- jointpdf 6y ago
  My mental image for this is the Protoss Carriers from Starcraft.
  - zizee 6y ago
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0qqQhgbn0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0qqQhgbn0
  - vulcan01 6y ago
    My mental image is the Arsenal Bird from Ace Combat 7 :)
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      I thought the same thing! https://i.redd.it/4deoeuq9e4m21.png https://i.redd.it/4deoeuq9e4m21.png Drones are the game's main theme and it's great.
  - sevenstar 6y ago
    This also reminds me of the Terminator bridge scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkmBWIUT54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkmBWIUT54
- dmos62 6y ago
  Funnily enough, this existed, but it was an airship instead of C130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_aircraft_carrier
  - xkcd-sucks 6y ago
    The linked on "parasite fighters" says that they are part of "composite aircraft systems". Before this, I thought the aerospace company Scaled Composites was a reference to materials (like fiberglass etc). The more you know!
    - pvg 6y ago
      The 'Composites' in Scaled Composites is definitely a reference to the materials. From Burt Rutan's wikipedia page: With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and the use of moldless composite construction in the homebuilt aircraft industry.
- mrec 6y ago
  See also the XF-85 parasite fighter concept for a manned version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin
Someone 6y ago
Instead of a lander drone a grappling hook and a soft runway might work, too. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_Q5CI7p5M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_Q5CI7p5M and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Lu6LEQ0zo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Lu6LEQ0zo for inspiration. I doubt those landings were healthy for the pilot’s back, but for drones, and given half a century or so of technological development, this might work. You might not even need the grappling hook. ‘Just’ stall the drone at a height of a few meters, and have it fall onto a relatively soft surface. Maybe add a small rocket to soften the landing.
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
It could land on its tail.
m0zg 6y ago
> The ability to act with coordination across a group of drones that the article mentions will be hard to beat Very easy to beat via even somewhat advanced radioelectronic warfare. Can't coordinate if you can't communicate. This is the Achilles heel of all these "advanced weapons systems" that look so great in the powerpoint slides but are only useful against enemies which don't have any weaponry built after mid-80s.
- krapht 6y ago
  Why are you so confident that communications jamming is easy? The person initiating the communications has all the cards; while the person trying to jam is stuck trying to blast power over a constantly shifting comms frequency and come in via an antenna sidelobe.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    I didn't mean it was easy "easy". But it's more than doable. And it's been done in Syria: https://www.thedefensepost.com/2018/05/01/russia-syria-electronic-warfare/ https://www.thedefensepost.com/2018/05/01/russia-syria-elect.... It's also very asymmetric, similar to e.g. advanced airplanes vs anti-aircraft rockets, or aircraft carriers vs submarines. One of the options is way cheaper, and makes the other not very viable if shit hits the fan.
    - krapht 6y ago
      You speak very confidently but I would like a technical discussion of the points I raised. Even in the link you posted, there is the following: "The U.S. is not getting the message, however, because no one in the U.S. military believes Russia is actually capable of jamming advanced drones and missiles, according to Valeriano." How do you defeat a drone swarm using frequency agile communications over narrow beams with cheap equipment, such that it's asymmetric in cost?
      - fit2rule 6y ago
        Well, seems like the jury is still out in many quarters, but there is a secret Cold War going on around electromagnetic jamming tech, and the Russians have the lead: https://www.voanews.com/europe/russian-mystery-weapon-claim-seen-sign-military-weakness https://www.voanews.com/europe/russian-mystery-weapon-claim-...
shostack 6y ago
I'm curious what will come about with different sizes. I'll bet a lot of people think of this in the context of quadcopters up to predator drones. I'm in the middle of The Diamond Age and all I can think of is the drones so small you can't see them. Imagine a jet flying through a cloud of drones. Maybe most are destroyed. But some work their way into the internal systems, or perhaps into the cockpit itself, and do who knows what.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Judging by current aircraft, maybe all the drone does is release a life-size swan into the jet engine.
  - golergka 6y ago
    Black or white? Also, poor animal.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    That's not far from how an anti-aircraft gun works. You create a cloud of shrapnel on the trajectory of the plane and its own velocity will damage it.
- GhostVII 6y ago
  I don't think a cloud of drones would be much more effective than the missiles we already have. Unless they are completely undetectable, they would be far easier to avoid than a missile.
  - shostack 6y ago
    Imagine if the goal isn't immediate destruction. Perhaps the jet thinks it destroyed or evaded them. Then it gets back to base. Drones phone home with location data of base for other ordinance, release biological warfare agents infecting an entire base (or worse), or spread from the infected jet to other vehicles and equipment doing untold billions in damage.
brmgb 6y ago
I'm still very sceptical about autonomous drone as fighters. We already have extremely fast autonomous vehicles specifically designed to take down fighters. They are called missiles. Modern missiles already do everything you are listing including cooperation. As the main weapons of fighter drones will likely be missiles anyway, the drones will probably be mostly glorified missiles carriers allowing reusability of some of the most expensive avionics. Usually, the hard problem for AI in military application is respecting the rules of engagement. I fully expect a human to still be in the loop for sometimes.
- m463 6y ago
  I think this is going to go like the smartphone, which has assimilated every other consumer electronic device. (music player, camera, video, ebook reader, fitness tracker, etc) Why not keep drones around for surveillance, for communication, anti-personnel, anti-aircraft, anti-boat, anti-car, signal jammer, take out a cell tower, take out a high tension line, etc... oh yeah, add contact tracing with an update :)
  - brmgb 6y ago
    Yes and no. If you mean having a combination of different specialised drones doing different roles, one of them being carrying sofisticated ordnances to take out fighters then I agree. If you mean having a multirole drone able to do everything (what would be an AI piloted F25) then I think it doesn't make a lick of sense. Fighters make little sense in modern warfare anyway. The cost/capability ratio just doesn't work especially considering they are only ever going to be used against considerably less advanced opponents as all the nations operating modern fighters could nuke each other. Regarding AI, my personnal belief is that having a computer assisting a human piloting a group of drones is a more promising avenue than fully autonomous drones but I might be wrong.
    - m463 6y ago
      > If you mean having a combination of different specialised drones doing different roles, one of them being carrying sofisticated ordnances to take out fighters then I agree. That is the opposite from what I'm saying. For example, all the current F planes are not specialized -- they are all termed multi-role fighters. They have all been treated as a platform and upgraded for more capabilities over time. I think drones will follow the same path -- glomming on capabilities instead of becoming more specialized. We will have multi-role drones.

dfsegoat 6y ago

Re: ditching landing gear, As I understand it, the Gremlins UAV swarm platform uses a ‘live capture’ system from to launch/recover from a C130 - no gear. You basically turn cargo aircraft into aircraft carriers. https://www.darpa.mil/program/gremlins https://www.darpa.mil/program/gremlins

jointpdf 6y ago
My mental image for this is the Protoss Carriers from Starcraft.
- zizee 6y ago
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0qqQhgbn0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AM0qqQhgbn0
- vulcan01 6y ago
  My mental image is the Arsenal Bird from Ace Combat 7 :)
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    I thought the same thing! https://i.redd.it/4deoeuq9e4m21.png https://i.redd.it/4deoeuq9e4m21.png Drones are the game's main theme and it's great.
- sevenstar 6y ago
  This also reminds me of the Terminator bridge scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkmBWIUT54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mkmBWIUT54
dmos62 6y ago
Funnily enough, this existed, but it was an airship instead of C130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_aircraft_carrier
- xkcd-sucks 6y ago
  The linked on "parasite fighters" says that they are part of "composite aircraft systems". Before this, I thought the aerospace company Scaled Composites was a reference to materials (like fiberglass etc). The more you know!
  - pvg 6y ago
    The 'Composites' in Scaled Composites is definitely a reference to the materials. From Burt Rutan's wikipedia page: With his VariEze and Long-EZ designs, which first flew in 1975 and 1979 respectively, Rutan is responsible for helping popularize both the canard configuration and the use of moldless composite construction in the homebuilt aircraft industry.
mrec 6y ago
See also the XF-85 parasite fighter concept for a manned version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_XF-85_Goblin

Someone 6y ago

Instead of a lander drone a grappling hook and a soft runway might work, too. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_Q5CI7p5M https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_s_Q5CI7p5M and https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Lu6LEQ0zo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Lu6LEQ0zo for inspiration. I doubt those landings were healthy for the pilot’s back, but for drones, and given half a century or so of technological development, this might work. You might not even need the grappling hook. ‘Just’ stall the drone at a height of a few meters, and have it fall onto a relatively soft surface. Maybe add a small rocket to soften the landing.

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

It could land on its tail.

m0zg 6y ago

> The ability to act with coordination across a group of drones that the article mentions will be hard to beat Very easy to beat via even somewhat advanced radioelectronic warfare. Can't coordinate if you can't communicate. This is the Achilles heel of all these "advanced weapons systems" that look so great in the powerpoint slides but are only useful against enemies which don't have any weaponry built after mid-80s.

krapht 6y ago
Why are you so confident that communications jamming is easy? The person initiating the communications has all the cards; while the person trying to jam is stuck trying to blast power over a constantly shifting comms frequency and come in via an antenna sidelobe.
- m0zg 6y ago
  I didn't mean it was easy "easy". But it's more than doable. And it's been done in Syria: https://www.thedefensepost.com/2018/05/01/russia-syria-electronic-warfare/ https://www.thedefensepost.com/2018/05/01/russia-syria-elect.... It's also very asymmetric, similar to e.g. advanced airplanes vs anti-aircraft rockets, or aircraft carriers vs submarines. One of the options is way cheaper, and makes the other not very viable if shit hits the fan.
  - krapht 6y ago
    You speak very confidently but I would like a technical discussion of the points I raised. Even in the link you posted, there is the following: "The U.S. is not getting the message, however, because no one in the U.S. military believes Russia is actually capable of jamming advanced drones and missiles, according to Valeriano." How do you defeat a drone swarm using frequency agile communications over narrow beams with cheap equipment, such that it's asymmetric in cost?
    - fit2rule 6y ago
      Well, seems like the jury is still out in many quarters, but there is a secret Cold War going on around electromagnetic jamming tech, and the Russians have the lead: https://www.voanews.com/europe/russian-mystery-weapon-claim-seen-sign-military-weakness https://www.voanews.com/europe/russian-mystery-weapon-claim-...

shostack 6y ago

I'm curious what will come about with different sizes. I'll bet a lot of people think of this in the context of quadcopters up to predator drones. I'm in the middle of The Diamond Age and all I can think of is the drones so small you can't see them. Imagine a jet flying through a cloud of drones. Maybe most are destroyed. But some work their way into the internal systems, or perhaps into the cockpit itself, and do who knows what.

renewiltord 6y ago
Judging by current aircraft, maybe all the drone does is release a life-size swan into the jet engine.
- golergka 6y ago
  Black or white? Also, poor animal.
- brmgb 6y ago
  That's not far from how an anti-aircraft gun works. You create a cloud of shrapnel on the trajectory of the plane and its own velocity will damage it.
GhostVII 6y ago
I don't think a cloud of drones would be much more effective than the missiles we already have. Unless they are completely undetectable, they would be far easier to avoid than a missile.
- shostack 6y ago
  Imagine if the goal isn't immediate destruction. Perhaps the jet thinks it destroyed or evaded them. Then it gets back to base. Drones phone home with location data of base for other ordinance, release biological warfare agents infecting an entire base (or worse), or spread from the infected jet to other vehicles and equipment doing untold billions in damage.

brmgb 6y ago

I'm still very sceptical about autonomous drone as fighters. We already have extremely fast autonomous vehicles specifically designed to take down fighters. They are called missiles. Modern missiles already do everything you are listing including cooperation. As the main weapons of fighter drones will likely be missiles anyway, the drones will probably be mostly glorified missiles carriers allowing reusability of some of the most expensive avionics. Usually, the hard problem for AI in military application is respecting the rules of engagement. I fully expect a human to still be in the loop for sometimes.

m463 6y ago
I think this is going to go like the smartphone, which has assimilated every other consumer electronic device. (music player, camera, video, ebook reader, fitness tracker, etc) Why not keep drones around for surveillance, for communication, anti-personnel, anti-aircraft, anti-boat, anti-car, signal jammer, take out a cell tower, take out a high tension line, etc... oh yeah, add contact tracing with an update :)
- brmgb 6y ago
  Yes and no. If you mean having a combination of different specialised drones doing different roles, one of them being carrying sofisticated ordnances to take out fighters then I agree. If you mean having a multirole drone able to do everything (what would be an AI piloted F25) then I think it doesn't make a lick of sense. Fighters make little sense in modern warfare anyway. The cost/capability ratio just doesn't work especially considering they are only ever going to be used against considerably less advanced opponents as all the nations operating modern fighters could nuke each other. Regarding AI, my personnal belief is that having a computer assisting a human piloting a group of drones is a more promising avenue than fully autonomous drones but I might be wrong.
  - m463 6y ago
    > If you mean having a combination of different specialised drones doing different roles, one of them being carrying sofisticated ordnances to take out fighters then I agree. That is the opposite from what I'm saying. For example, all the current F planes are not specialized -- they are all termed multi-role fighters. They have all been treated as a platform and upgraded for more capabilities over time. I think drones will follow the same path -- glomming on capabilities instead of becoming more specialized. We will have multi-role drones.