Chinese UAV/UCAV development

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

One would assume the UAVs in the not so far future would have some level of A.I. to carry out the mission autonomously, assuming its electronics are somehow able to survive the EM bomb.

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

Considering almost nothing that's an electronic can survive EMP, and UAV is an electronic vehicle, your question is equivalent of asking can any animals survive a nerve agent attack. Electricity is the neurotransmittion of electronics, and EMP is designed to blow it like VX would do to your nervous system.

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

airsuperiority said:

Considering almost nothing that's an electronic can survive EMP, and UAV is an electronic vehicle, your question is equivalent of asking can any animals survive a nerve agent attack. Electricity is the neurotransmittion of electronics, and EMP is designed to blow it like VX would do to your nervous system.

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That's not remotely true. Civilian electronics are vulnerable sure, but pretty much all military grade electronics are EMP hardened these days. The most basic form of EMP shielding is a faraday cage, which has been around for newrly two centuries now, and EMP shielding has moved on a lot in that time.

The weak link in EMP shielding is the antenna, which links the shielded electronics to the outside world and which could provide a bridge for EMP to get at the electronics inside the shielding, but a basic fuse would provide protection there, and something slightly more advanced like a common surge protector would allow the connection to be restablished without needing a manual fuse change.

EMP is way overrated by the likes of Hollywood. In the real world, the only use EMPs would have as a weapon would be cause a lot of damage to civilian consumer electronics and maybe also infrastructure. But on the battlefield, the effect EMP can expect to have would be minimal.

The biggest challenge for UAVs would be to have some form of limited AI which can take over control in the event direct contact is lost with a ground station. But the main driving factors behind autonomous UCAVs are:

1) Detection. Many modern digital RWRs can detect the electronic emissions from a two way datalink. Being incision to enemy active radar scanning is not all that useful if the enemy can detect the active emissions from your datalinks and use that to pinpoint your stealthy UAVs.

2) Logistics. Needing a man in the loop takes up a great deal of satellite bandwidth because of the need to steam live, high resolution video feeds. With total bandwidth finite, that imposes a cap on the number of UAVs you can operate at the same time.

3) Control. Needing a man in the loop means you need a controller for each and every UAV. That's a lot of control stations needed, and even more pilots because even if UAVs can fly 24/7, their pilots cannot and would need to be working on rotating shifts. All those costs add up quickly.

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

TyroneG said:

I can see this scenario, a large group of stealthy UAV is launched for mission. Of course, they are stealthy and hard to pin point. But what if EM Bombs are explode near vincinity and the signals are Jammed.

UAV has no Manuel override and lost of control signals means they will fall out of the sky since no one inside the plane to control it?

Normal plane if signals are Jammed, the pilot can manually fly the plane back home but that's not the case with UAV.

Is that a Vulnerable aspect of the UAV?

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?

No more vulnerable then a regular modern jet. same technology in flight controls.

Nearly all big Military UAVs have a "lost-SatCom-Return-to-Pre-destined-Nav-Point" mode.

The actual flying is done with Computers anyways regardless if man-in-the-loop or not. (same as civil airliners actually, autopilot flys the airplane, and if the pilot actually uses stick and rudder? well he is done through a computer anyways)

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

plawolf said:

That's not remotely true. Civilian electronics are vulnerable sure, but pretty much all military grade electronics are EMP hardened these days. The most basic form of EMP shielding is a faraday cage, which has been around for newrly two centuries now, and EMP shielding has moved on a lot in that time.

The weak link in EMP shielding is the antenna, which links the shielded electronics to the outside world and which could provide a bridge for EMP to get at the electronics inside the shielding, but a basic fuse would provide protection there, and something slightly more advanced like a common surge protector would allow the connection to be restablished without needing a manual fuse change.

EMP is way overrated by the likes of Hollywood. In the real world, the only use EMPs would have as a weapon would be cause a lot of damage to civilian consumer electronics and maybe also infrastructure. But on the battlefield, the effect EMP can expect to have would be minimal.

The biggest challenge for UAVs would be to have some form of limited AI which can take over control in the event direct contact is lost with a ground station. But the main driving factors behind autonomous UCAVs are:

1) Detection. Many modern digital RWRs can detect the electronic emissions from a two way datalink. Being incision to enemy active radar scanning is not all that useful if the enemy can detect the active emissions from your datalinks and use that to pinpoint your stealthy UAVs.

2) Logistics. Needing a man in the loop takes up a great deal of satellite bandwidth because of the need to steam live, high resolution video feeds. With total bandwidth finite, that imposes a cap on the number of UAVs you can operate at the same time.

3) Control. Needing a man in the loop means you need a controller for each and every UAV. That's a lot of control stations needed, and even more pilots because even if UAVs can fly 24/7, their pilots cannot and would need to be working on rotating shifts. All those costs add up quickly.

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Ah i remember the faraday cage. So there really are ways to protect against it. I was doing a quick research for my answer before i post, so I guess the results were shitty this time. Thanks for the heads up.

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

TyroneG said:

I can see this scenario, a large group of stealthy UAV is launched for mission. Of course, they are stealthy and hard to pin point. But what if EM Bombs are explode near vincinity and the signals are Jammed.

UAV has no Manuel override and lost of control signals means they will fall out of the sky since no one inside the plane to control it?

Normal plane if signals are Jammed, the pilot can manually fly the plane back home but that's not the case with UAV.

Is that a Vulnerable aspect of the UAV?

Click to expand...

I'm sure UCAV's are EMP hardened especially the bigger and more expensive ones. Those are also autonomous meaning they can fly themselves even if the signals are jammed or have no way to reestablish the link. It all depends on the mission profiles and operational directive.
At this moment even autonomous UCAV (at least in the US) are not preprogrammed to fire their weapons and still requires human input and verification for that. So technically a UCAV cannot fire it's weapons if the link with it's human pilot is lost. However that is just semantics.
If I'm sending a bunch of UAVs on a suicide mission (i.e swarm attack) and I know there is a possibility of the opponent sending an EMP blast wave I will preprogramed all my UAVs to also fire their weapons at the preselect target. In that case an EMP blast would have little effect on the UAVs.

Re: Is stealth UAV Vulnerable to EM Bomb?

TyroneG said:

I can see this scenario, a large group of stealthy UAV is launched for mission. Of course, they are stealthy and hard to pin point. But what if EM Bombs are explode near vincinity and the signals are Jammed.

UAV has no Manuel override and lost of control signals means they will fall out of the sky since no one inside the plane to control it?

Normal plane if signals are Jammed, the pilot can manually fly the plane back home but that's not the case with UAV.

Click to expand...

Actually, any sophisticated UAV does have automated systems in it that allow it to return to base or some other designated point if signal is lost. It can do this with its own INS (Inertial Navigation System) or IGS (Inertial Guidance System).

TyroneG said:

Is that a Vulnerable aspect of the UAV?

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No. Even the EMP will not necessarily impact a sophisticated UAV because it will be hardened against it, as are all important military systems.

Jeff Head said:

Well, there is no doubt that the labor costs will be less. And in addition, the regulations our manufacturing has to work under given the mandates for labor, safety, environmental concerns, etc. also drive up the costs a lot.

Do not get me wrong, those things are necessary...but lets just say we have gone way overboard on them...beyond reason and common sense...when a plant contruction can be stopped because of some mite that may be in the dirt, or when every conceivable place has may have to have disability access when a disabled person would never work in those areas in the first place. Things like that.

In addition, the MQ-8 Fire Scout at this point is much more capable in terms of its weapons systems, sensors and interface. Whether the Chinese will get equivalent capability for the $2 million is yet to be seen. I have worked in Project Management for a long time, and on weapons systems, the intial estimates by the designer (and I have made a few of my onw) rarely end up being the final cost. Very rarely.

Time will tell.

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Well... from my point of view (which might be wrong), there are other things other than labour and labour welfare (safety, environment concern and the such) that increase the cost of manufacturing a product such as,

1) Supply chain
2) Support infrastructure
3) Design of the product
4) Material used
5) Manufacturing technology

I find that the above five points contribute largely to the price difference in a product being manufactured and the above five points might bring down an overall cost by huge margins.

I remember Steve Job (CEO of Apple) did say that when he want a scratch proof LCD screen for his iPhone, the US company took months to deliver while Foxconn in China took something like 1 week (I took these out from memory... so the timeframe might be a bit different, but it is something like that)... of course not saying that US supply chain and support infrastructure was going down hill... but if they could pick up fast, manufacturing hi-tech equipment in the US would not be too much of a cost difference as compared to China (sure... material, manpower cost will be higher, but other things might not be.)

rhino123 said:

1) Supply chain
2) Support infrastructure
3) Design of the product
4) Material used
5) Manufacturing technology.

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Well, numbers 1-3 and their cost impact can also be attributed to the very things I pointed out.

Number 4 is a part of the design and would be telling on either side.

Number 5 will balance itself out. Higher on the front end, but if used properly and of good quality, will lessen life-time costs.

tphuang said:

Welcome to the board, Dennis!

I remember reading about you on aviation weeks a while ago.

Good to hear from someone who works in the industry posting here.

Just out of curiosity, do you have American or Chinese engineers working under you on these projects or are you doing all the designing yourself?

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Thank you.

I use local Chinese engineers. I have to train them from the ground up about helicopter design. That is probably harder than just designing the helicopter by myself, in fact, but I need the help. There is always a language barrier for the technical terms of hardware and materials that take about 1.5 years per Chinese engineer to overcome.