Chinese UAV & UCAV development

Originally Posted by kyanges

That kind of adaptive learning what exactly what I was referring to having read about. No one programmed the drone on how to take off, they just let it work up to it in baby steps. I'll have to find the material on it again and reread it to make sure I'm not recalling it incorrectly. It has been a few years.

Well that is news to me, I would be interested in reading this piece if you happened to find it.

Originally Posted by no_name

I'm thinking about the idea of pairing up the likes of J-20 with Anjian.

Maybe we could have a two seater J-20 version where the pilot controls the J-20 and the co-pilot can control Anjian alongside it. Both will be optimised for LO.

Whereas J-20 can be utilized for BVR combat, as enemy approaches closer range the anjian can start to play a more important role with its bag of close range missiles or even completely take over the action while the J-20 can be on standby or even allowed time to retreat.

The single seater J-20 can still be used for deep strike missions.

Also what's the potential of one or even multiple anjians being controlled from and acts as body guards for AWACs. They can even protect other important assets such as tankers or dispatched to help out local hot spots with high speed dashes. On landing their control will be transferred to ground units.

I had also originally thought of a two-seat J20 as the ideal controlled for such an UCAV. However, I have since moved away from the idea on further consideration.

Firstly, unless the J20 pulls a fast one, its weapons bay will be similar in size and carrying capacity to that of the F22. The most I would expect is if it was a little deeper so SDBs and medium sized missiles could also be carried. But that does not make the J20 a strike aircraft, and as such, there would be no need for a two-seat strike version.

Seeing how expensive the J20 is likely to be, it is also very unlikely that a two-seat trainer would be developed.

This means that if you were to have a two seat J20 UCAV controller, it would have to be a specially modified J20 version. Given the cost, and performance compromises that would have to be made to put in the second seat, and the cost of the platform itself, I find it highly unlikely that the PLAAF would sanction such a version.

In terms of mission profile, the biggest drawback to putting the controller on a J20 is that with the kind of bandwidth we are talking about, there is a significant chance that the datalink might give off a strong enough signal for enemy EW suits to find and target the J20 with. That is a highly undesirable possibility and that alone would probably be enough to trash the whole idea.

Secondly, with the kind of control I was thinking of, a single pilot can only control a single UCAV at any one time. That means you will need a the same number of J20s as UCAVs, and somewhat gives up the possibility of vast numerical advantage against a foe, which is one of the key strengths of cheap, expendable UCAVs.

Thirdly, if the controlling J20 also engages in air combat, both pilots would be subject to potentially high-Gs, and that might significantly degrade the performance of the UCAV pilot, since he will likely not be able to prepare himself, and his sense might easily be overwhelmed and confused if his eyes and body are telling him completely different things.

I think the J20s should not be burdened with this responsibility, and make no mistake, sticking the UCAV controlled in the back seat of a J20 would be a massive hinderance to how well and effectively a J20 can go about its own business.

If there are to be controllers, then they would ideally be place in modified AWACS birds, or specially designed flying control centers. While these assets might be a lot more visible and vulnerable than a J20, they do offer the ability to hold scores of controllers and be able to direct entire regiments' worth of UCAVs in combat. Since assets like AWACS are so critical to modern war fighting, they would need to be employed anyways, and would be top priority targets for the enemy anyways, so adding a UCAV control function to it will not chance much, expect maybe make the AWACS more survivable, as it can not direct a swarm of highly capable UCAVs against anything that tries to attack them.

The other possible way that such an UCAV might be employed is as escort for a dedicated stealth striker, which just happens to be SAC's baby if rumors are true.

So you will have a two seat dedicated stealth striker that will sacrifice agility for range and payload and lower costs. Having an ultra-agile WVR combat specialist UCAV riding shotgun could be a good solution to allow such a plane to still have a good chance of completing its mission without needing J20s to babysit even if they run into 5th gen opposition like F22s or PAK-FAs.

Normally, the UCAV can function independently with a simply command like 'follow the striker'. But if an enemy threat appears, the weapons officer can flick a switch and take control of the UCAV to intercept the hostile while the striker continues on mission.

This will leave the J20s free to patrol and defend other friend assets, or go roaming deep behind enemy 'lines' hunting for high value targets like enemy AWACS and tankers.