Research on Operational Capability and Countermeasures of the U.S. UAV Swarm

Abstract

At present, the research on UAV swarm operations is more and more widely in the world. As the leader of UAV technology and swarm tactics, the research on the swarm has become practical. On the basis of defining the swarm, the paper first analyses the operational capabilities of the U.S. UAV swarm. The U.S. UAV swarm has variety of advantages, and it integrates the capabilities of saturation attack, cooperative operation, distributed decision-making and precision attack. Then the paper analyzes the characteristics of operational applications of U.S. UAV swarm from multiple perspectives such as platforms and tactical applications. The UAV swarm brings infinite possibilities for future operational pattern, and also brings unpredictable thread to ground air defense system, but on the other hand, its overall operational capabilities and tactical and technical performances are still difficult to meet the ideal requirements of large-scale operations at this stage. Finally the paper discusses the countermeasures and suggestions against the UAV swarm.