Speed breakers on India’s manned-unmanned teaming programme
Ghazala Wahab
For all the humming in the sky, the biggest challenge in the development of intelligent unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to accompany manned fighters in collaborative combat is the absence of validation of even remotely controlled armed drones against a peer adversary, forget autonomous vehicles. Until now most of the operational employment of armed or killer drones, from the Caucasus to West Asia, has been against a technologically inferior adversary with little to no air defence and anti-drone capabilities, barring sporadic attacks on Russia. Consequently, the learning from experience, or data to fuel the development of intelligent drones have been limited.
Even though the concept of manned-unmanned teaming or collaborative combat first emerged in the early years of 2000s, the clarity about what would be a leap of faith came in only by the middle of the next decade—collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) or the unmanned aircraft, intelligent enough to operate just as manned aircraft. This implies that CCA should be able to communicate with manned aircraft in a subordinate role and it should have battlefield survivability to the extent that it survives even when the manned aircraft doesn’t. Hence, the CCA would not be a weapon but a vector, which would perform a mission and return to the base with or without the manned fighter. To further emphasise its role, the Americans termed the CCA, a loyal wingman. Until now most of the operationally employed unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) have been either kamikaze or dispensable.
While there are ethical questions about how much intelligence and consequently, autonomy the CCA should have, the immediate priority is validation of an unmanned fighter or UCAV which can operate autonomously and in collaboration with a manned fighter, matching not only its speed but capabilities too. If claims are to be believed, then in October 2024, Türkiye became the first country to fly a UCAV, Anka-3, developed by Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), controlled not remotely but by a flying fighter. Quoting a Turkish X account, Belgian portal Army Recognition reported this development calling it a milestone. However, neither TAI nor any other news portal reported this flight. Even Army Recognition did not share details about the fighter which controlled the UCAV and what mission was carried out by the latter. Nevertheless, TAI describes Anka-3 as a next generation stealth UCAV with speed of Mach 0.7, powered as it is by a turbofan engine, and has endurance of up to 10 hours. Capable of operating at 40,000 feet, it can carry about seven tons.
Whatever be the capabilities of Anka-3, the mere presence of a superior unmanned platform doesn’t automatically lead to it becoming an autonomous or intelligent accompanist to a manned fighter. The United States (US), China and Israel already operate advanced semi-autonomous drones and are working on high-speed, long endurance systems with greater autonomy. For example, the US programme, called Skyborg, being led by its air force has been testing the autonomy of a fighter—F-16 modified by General Dynamics as X-62A Vista—in an unmanned configuration. Flown by Artificial Intelligence programmes like Autonomous Air Combat Operations (AACO) and Air Combat Evolution (ACE), Vista has successfully completed several flights, encouraging the USAF to seek further funding. However, even as the testing continues, in late 2024, the USAF announced its decision to support the research programmes of only General Atomics, and another US company Anduril, for the development of CCA which could become the loyal wingman.
As envisaged by the USAF, by the time CCA would be ready for deployment, in about a decade, a 6th-Gen fighter would be in service. And if not, then F-22 or F-35 could be the lead fighter for collaborative combat. Like the US, the UK also envisaged developing a loyal wingman to accompany its proposed 6th-Gen fighter Tempest. But unlike the US, the plan is currently in a limbo because of lack of funding, despite the UK seeking collaborative funding from Japan, Italy and even Saudi Arabia, which has refused to come on board.
The European programme, referred to as Future Combat Air System (FCAS), on the other hand, helmed by Airbus (Germany), Dassault Aviation (France) and Indra Sistemas (Spain) was conceptualised in 2018 with Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon, both 4+ Gen, as lead aircraft. The focus has been on developing Next Generation Weapon Systems (NGWS) comprising AI-enabled manned and unmanned platforms and weapon systems, hardened networks, multi-dimensional secured communication and a combat air cloud to accelerate the Observe, Orient, Decide and Act (OODA) loop by sharing real-time interpretative data with the idea of decentralising command and control.
While the target date for full operationalisation of FCAS has been fixed as 2040, by which time Airbus and Dassault Aviation expect to have a next-generation fighter and a UCAV with radar signatures so minimal as to make them almost invisible, the partner companies expect the associated technologies to get operationalised in the decade of 2025-2035.
Enter India
Jumping on the manned-unmanned bandwagon, in 2021, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) announced the ambitious Combat Air Teaming Systems programme at the initial development cost of Rs 1,000 crore. In HAL’s vision, the system will comprise four elements: A mothership, a couple of UCAVs (as loyal wingmen) called CATS Warrior, small cruise missiles called CATS Hunter and loitering munition to operate as swarm called ALFA-S. Four years later, the only notable progress has been the engine ground run of the full-scale demonstrator of CATS Warrior.
The biggest challenge here is the mothership itself, the role that HAL has assigned to the underdevelopment LCA Mk-II, a 4th Gen fighter. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit in June 2023, GE had signed an agreement with HAL for coproduction of aero-engines to power LCA Mk-II. The production is yet to begin. And LCA Mk-II is not expected to fly before 2026. If all goes well, then mass production will likely begin in 2029.
Left with no choice but to throw its weight behind the ambitious CATS programme, a senior IAF officer says, “We are not the only ones facing problems in man-unmanned teaming programmes. Even the Europeans and Americans are grappling with ethical issues of how much autonomy should be given to unmanned systems.”
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