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Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

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Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#31

Post by foxyv »

tharkun__ wrote: post #24
mtillman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wonder if drones even need to look like they do or if there is a more efficient design that we don't use simply because "things that fly look like this" where "this" includes a place for a cockpit.

We already see in Ukraine that many effective drones are not the "Predator" type that are basically a "fighter jet without the human" design.

Such drones will not last long on the battlefield. The countermeasures for MITM drones is going to be brutal in the next 5 years after what we've seen in Ukraine. Russia has already been doing pretty well using ECM against Ukraine's drones. However, HIMARS has been employed effectively against jamming devices as well.

Low cost autonomous hunter killers as area denial munitions is going to be something else though. Once we no longer require man-in-the-middle these drones will be horrifying. You will be able to just say "Kill anything with these characteristics in this area at this time." Then leave the area and wait for the mayhem to begin. Think land mines that place themselves miles away and then get up out of their hole and then chase down whoever gets near enough.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#32

Post by frenchyatwork »

krunck wrote: post #7

Seeing term "loyal wingman" - meaning an unmanned combat air vehicle - makes me ask: Are the human pilots not considered loyal enough? Maybe so. The humans might hesitate on an order to shoot whereas the AI will not. I prefer the human that at least hesitates to shoot at a target that will cause substantial "collateral damage".

Historically at least, one of the significant jobs of a wingman has been to act as bait. With dogfighting, with cannon fire, fighters are most vulnerable when they're trying to shoot down another plane, because they need to be pointing to their target so they tend to be going in a fairly straight and predictable direction. The idea was the wingman would lure one of the enemies onto their back, and then the their partner would dispatch the relatively easy target. This is one of reasons why fighter aces in WWII had such a lopsided kill count compared to everyone else. In order for this all to work, the pilots have to trust each other, and it was certainly the case that some fighter aces put a higher priority on getting kills than preventing the death of their wingman.

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about these things (and most of it is theoretical anyway because most of this tech is untested), but I suspect that there will be a similar mechanic with modern stealth and beyond-visual-range air warfare, whereby firing missles makes you easier to locate and ultimately target, so having a wingman who's willing to act as target practice while another pilot waits for an enemy to betray their location could be useful.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#33

Post by foxyv »

ourmandave wrote: post #26

The Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program is developing autonomous aircraft that are likely to be part of the larger NGAD effort. It would consist of the unmanned, loyal wingmen that would support a manned fighter. How long before that's flipped and the manned fighter is supporting the UAV?

I think the idea is that the pilot in the manned vehicle is supposed to be the one to decide on weapons employment. Also it's much harder to jam communications at sub-mile distances between a pilot an their LWMs.

If you flipped it, you may as well omit the manned fighter.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#34

Post by foxyv »

tra3 wrote: post #12

I wanted to make a joke how Sopwith [0] enemy fighters were already good in the 80s but this is kinda terrifying. Why are they trying to retrofit an F16, a whole new platform without human-required accommodations would make more sense.. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_(video_game)

If you have a bunch of cars sitting in your garage and you want to test your auto-driving software, you don't start by building a car. Simple as that.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#35

Post by maxglute »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #22
cjbgkagh wrote: post #2

These aircraft were built with human limitations in mind, take away the human dependency and you can engineer aircraft capable of much higher Gs for longer.

Yes and no. In principle you could engineer something to support higher Gs but that is not a critical part of the performance envelope in modern combat and it comes at the cost of heavier weight and reduced weapons capacity. Since modern aerial combat is sensor-driven, you'd be better off with a lighter and less maneuverable airframe and larger weapon capacity. You can see this with the recent evolution of combat air…

Bomb trucks is what better sensors/networking enabled. Perfromant AI piloting can enable other tactics, i.e. high performance, high G UAVs with great energetics and endurance can feasibly out evade anti air missiles to bruce force through IAMDs at scale. Sensors would matters less if hardware can't intercept because targetting performance envelop without meatbag limits is harder. Being able to detect =/= being able to effectively engage. Not saying AI pilots have impunity, rather it shifts balance towards offense, i.e. instead of taking 2 missiles to have 95% probability of kill, now need 10 missiles, aka all of a sudden the entire structure/feasibility/economics of all sorts of air defense stops making sense. Imagine mutual air superiority in AI vs AI fighters because it's just too wasteful / impractical to shoot each other down, so everyone goes strait for support nodes on land... or carrier aviation. Imagine a carrier group with DDGs, and air wing designed to deter 100 human pilots now being penetrated/overwhelmed by 20.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#36

Post by caycep »

throwup238 wrote: post #13
forinti wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus it's probably better to have many smaller and cheaper planes than one big expensive one.

These drones won't be that much cheaper. The life support isn't the most expensive part in high performance fighter jets, it's the airframe, sensors, and engine. The airframe will still have to have some sort of stealth and the engine will be similar to those in other fighters, especially if they're expected to be supersonic too.

Maybe some size reduction? I think they need to figure out just how big enough to carry enough fuel for range and weapons payload

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#37

Post by GuB-42 »

forinti wrote: post #5
cjbgkagh wrote: post #2

These aircraft were built with human limitations in mind, take away the human dependency and you can engineer aircraft capable of much higher Gs for longer.

Plus it's probably better to have many smaller and cheaper planes than one big expensive one.

Not necessarily, there is a balance to be found. For example, there is no point sending thousands of mini-drones if a simple jammer can make them all fall out of the sky, or if they can't reach their target because their range is too limited, or because they are too slow and visible for a surprise attack.

Modern fighters are big and expensive because of their capabilities like speed, range, stealth, weaponry, counter-measures, radars, etc... And they are not just made to blow up stuff (we have missiles for that), they are also complete platforms for reconnaissance, communication, etc... And the pilot is not just there to control the plane, he is also an officer on the battlefield with all that implies regarding situation awareness and decision making.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#38

Post by maxglute »

foxyv wrote: post #25
cjbgkagh wrote: post #2

These aircraft were built with human limitations in mind, take away the human dependency and you can engineer aircraft capable of much higher Gs for longer.

Higher Gs isn't a significant advantage anymore. Sidewinder missiles hit 60-70Gs and no plane you can make will out pull one. Modern dogfights often last for a single turn or even less. It's often a matter of who sees the other first. Israel's new Python-5 is able to attack jets in a 360 degree sphere and has lock after launch. Countermeasure rejection has gotten so good a merge is essentially a death sentence. The r…

High G can significantly reduce no-escape zone of AA missiles with limit fuel for final maneuvering. A performant unmanned fighter with more endurance to play the energetics game can make anti air very expensive, and possibly impracticable depending on context.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#39

Post by throwup238 »

caycep wrote: post #36
throwup238 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These drones won't be that much cheaper. The life support isn't the most expensive part in high performance fighter jets, it's the airframe, sensors, and engine. The airframe will still have to have some sort of stealth and the engine will be similar to those in other fighters, especially if they're expected to be supersonic too.

Maybe some size reduction? I think they need to figure out just how big enough to carry enough fuel for range and weapons payload

A single sidewinder is almost 200 pounds and GBU-31/32/38 JDAMs are 500-2,000 pounds each, so accounting for the pilot and ejection seat, you're only getting a small bomb's worth of weight.

Making them smaller significantly reduces the volume available for weapons, sensors, and fuel too much IMO. See the Predator, which doesn't have a large weapons loadout and still has the cockpit dome for the radar.

Re: Autonomous F-16 Fighters Are 'Roughly Even' with Human Pilots

#40

Post by foxyv »

maxglute wrote: post #38
foxyv wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Higher Gs isn't a significant advantage anymore. Sidewinder missiles hit 60-70Gs and no plane you can make will out pull one. Modern dogfights often last for a single turn or even less. It's often a matter of who sees the other first. Israel's new Python-5 is able to attack jets in a 360 degree sphere and has lock after launch. Countermeasure rejection has gotten so good a merge is essentially a death sentence. The r…

High G can significantly reduce no-escape zone of AA missiles with limit fuel for final maneuvering. A performant unmanned fighter with more endurance to play the energetics game can make anti air very expensive, and possibly impracticable depending on context.

High Gs in a BVR engagement aren't that great either. You lose too much energy engaging in that much acceleration. The killer feature of BVR is the trade. If your loyal wingman will happily fly well into minimum abort range and launch high PK shots, against manned targets you can almost guarantee a kill.
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