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The Ascent of the Robotic Attack Jet
Compared to many aeronautical curiosities that have taken wing at NASAs Dryden Flight Research Center at Californias Edwards Air Force Base over the years, the latest military test stunts did not appear very remarkable. Last April, a low-slung aircraft, about the size of a sport utility vehicle but with batlike wings similar to those of the B-2 stealth bomber, took off, flew at 10,500 meters and then dropped a 110-kilogram inert precision bomb while zipping along at 700 kilometers per hour. Four months later, a pair of the aircraft took off and flew together. These were modest stunts, to be sure, except for this fact: the jets have no pilots. They are the future of warfare, the first working models of networked autonomous attack jets, and the U.S. Department of Defense would like to start building them by 2010. Eventually such planes will be military mainstays. Of this, most observers are sure; it is simply a lot less expensiveand saferto send machines into battle than to send people, who require food, sleep, training, and pay. Humans can only tolerate so much G-force and are prone to error; unmanned aircraft have the potential to be more dependable. Already, lone unmanned planeswith humans at the remote controlsare widely used for surveillance. But the next crop of planes will fly in coordinated groups, with more autonomy. Theyll tackle jobs such as attacking enemy air defenses, identifying new targets, and releasing precision bombs. The long-range vision is that the president will wake up some day and decide he doesnt like the cut of someones jib and send thither infinite numbers of myrmidonsrobotic warriorsand that we could wage a war in which we wouldnt put at risk our precious skins is how John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a leading defense policy website, puts it. . . . . In recent years, unmanned planes have proven themselves in war. For example, the Predator, a medium-altitude surveillance plane made by General Atomics, debuted in Bosnia and then served in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Global Hawk, made by Northrop Grumman, has been flying high-altitude reconnaissance missions for years. Meanwhile, Northrop has built and flown another unmanned prototype, called Pegasus, and shown that it could land on an aircraft carrier. But the Pentagons massive push for robotic attack planes began in earnest in 2003. Thats when the Pentagon set up the NorthropBoeing competition and established a seven-year timetable to develop versions suitable for the air force and navy. Boeings version is called X-45; a scaled-down prototype is what dropped the inert bomb last year, and a full-size model is under construction. Northrops version is called X-47; it builds on the Pegasus, and the next generation model is still under development. The X-45 is geared more to high-speed air force attacks, and the X-47 to naval reconnaissance and carrier landings. In both cases, the largest prototypes* are supposed to take their first test flights within two years. (Amid the current budgetary uncertainty, DARPA declined to make its researchers available for comment. Comments from DARPA officials in this story come from agency transcripts of presentations the officials made last year.) Its not yet clear how many of which version the Pentagon might eventually want to buy. In that important way, this effort differs from the intense, winner-take-all competition to build the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, widely seen as the last manned fighter jet. Boeing lost the F-35 competition to Lockheed Martin in 2001. It caused [Boeing] to skip a whole generation of fighter aircraft, after being the foremost fighter aircraft supplier, says Paul Nisbet, an aerospace industry watcher at JSA Research in Newport, RI. Boeings initial pair of scaled-down X-45s have already proved themselves in several initial demonstrations. In 2003, BoeÂing passed one milestone, showing how the planes ground controllers could coordinate flight plans with conventional air-traffic controllers and modify the X-45s flight plan as needed. Then, in 2004, Boeings X-45s demonstrated a few more tricksdeploying inert bombs and, critically, demonstrating that its ground controllers could hand off the wireless yoke to another station nearly 1,400 kilometers away while the plane was in the air. Finally, Boeing showed that a single ground controller could control two X-45s. And Boeing has anotherperhaps more importantace in the hole. The Pentagon already considers Boeing its lead systems integrator for a development project called Future Combat Systems. This megaÂproject is supposed to yield 18 kinds of sensor-riddled combat vehicles and the adÂvanced communications technologies to link soldiers with vehicles, planes, robots, and each other. This program is also likely to get scaled back as part of a new round of Pentagon cuts; the new emphasis will be on adding technology to existing vehicles. Still, both of these programs are talking about putting robots on the battlefield, says Pike. Boeing has looked at it and basically said, Its the future. They are the lead company for robots on the ground battlefield, and theyve staked out a pretty tall position for aerial robots. But Boeing and Northrop recognize that the current program isnt about who can build the best plane. Before, we were looking at building the best platform, says William Body, a Boeing manager for business development at the companys R&D outpost, Phantom Works, based in Saint Louis, MO. Now we are looking at creating the system-of-systems. Well have unmanned planes, well have core technologies. But the endgame here is a network-centric endgame. Scary! I imagine 100+ killer robots swooping over the battlefield, providing air support and intel! Nice to have but I hope it never gets in the wrong hands. I think Humans would still dominate in Jungle,Mountain,and urban warefare, atleast longer. Posted by: (=Cobra=) 2005-03-04 |
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