Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Research Articles

Military Advancement of Chinese Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: Security Implications for India

The advanced Military UAVs have significantly all over the world in different form. The cost-effectiveness and political advantages of UAVs make it as one of the powerful weapon in 21st century. Economically, UAVs offer reduced vehicle costs, operational expenses, and pilot training compared to manned aircraft. Politically, they can lower the threshold for the use of force in various scenarios especially when it is used for grey warfare. Consequently, military UAVs are employed for bold intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, thereby providing an edge to the users in terms of information superiority, which can bolster influence over disputed territories. The PRC embarked on military UAV development as early as the 1950s, initially emulating technologies from the US and the Soviet Union. Presently, China competes with the US in UAV technology advancements. Employing a government-led top-down approach, China fosters vibrant cooperation among industries, academia, and the military to develop UAV capabilities, with a focus on expanding influence in the surrounding region. Since Xi Jinping assumed office in 2012, aggressive policies have been implemented to assert control over sea territories within the first island chain. The main agenda of Xi Jingping is making China AI enabled in all sectors especially in the area of Military Technologies. This is why military UAVs are anticipated to play a pivotal role in Xi’s Indo-Pacific strategy, where the PRC faces conflicts with neighboring countries. On the other joining hands with Pakistan, China continuously using its high-end drone technology against India to create internal security problems for India in form of drugs smuggling, proliferation of illegal arms and ammunition the This article delves into the significant development of military unmanned aerial vehicles by the People’s Republic of China and their utilization in confrontations with India.

Military unmanned aerial vehicle operations through the lens of a high‐reliability system: Challenges and opportunities

AbstractThis study examines the impact of regulations and standard procedures on safety outcomes in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations, specifically focussing on Norwegian military UAV systems, from a high‐reliability organization (HRO) perspective. By analyzing data from existing regulations, accident reports, and interviews with military drone pilots using thematic analysis, we identify key recurring themes. Our findings highlight the importance of fatigue and exhaustion due to the absence of regulations on resting time for military drone pilots. This poses substantial risks and increases the likelihood of accidents and incidents in UAV operations. Additionally, we uncover gaps in safety reporting and accountability for military UAV pilots, indicating the need for improved reporting procedures that consider the unique operational elements of UAVs. Effective communication between stakeholders, including drone pilots, ground crew, and air traffic controllers, emerges as a critical factor in maintaining situational awareness. This emphasis on communication is consistent with HRO principles and supports the essential safety tasks of UAV pilots, namely sense‐making, decision making, and performance. By uncovering the impact of regulations and operational procedures on safety outcomes and addressing fatigue in UAV operations, this research contributes to enhancing the safety and reliability of Norwegian military UAV systems.

Effect of inclination angle on the film cooling in a serpentine nozzle with strong adverse pressure gradient

The serpentine nozzle is widely used in military unmanned aerial vehicles to improve their viability. The film cooling technology should be used in the serpentine nozzle to cope with excessive thermal load. Strong adverse pressure gradient (APG) in the serpentine nozzle induces the recirculation zone near the upper wall downstream of the film hole, such that the effect of inclination angle on the film cooling characteristics is quite different from that in other studies. A numerical investigation was conducted to study the influence of the film hole inclination angle (α = 20°, 30°, 45°, 60°) on the film cooling characteristics in a serpentine nozzle with strong APG. Results show that the inclination angle changes the region of recirculation zone, then affects the development of counter rotating vortex pair and anti-counter rotating vortex pair (ACRVP), and finally results in different distributions of the film cooling effectiveness (FCE). For blowing ratio, M, = 0.5, 1, and 1.5, with the increase in the inclination angle, the recirculation zone expands, and the vorticity of the ACRVP increases. For M = 2, with the increase in the inclination angle, the recirculation zone first shrinks and then expands, and the vorticity of the ACRVP first decreases and then increases. Taking all the four blowing ratios into account, we find that the 30° inclination angle gives the best film cooling effect, and the area-average FCE under conditions α = 20°, α = 45°, and α = 60° is 7.5%, 5.6%, and 5.0%, respectively, lower than that under condition α = 30°. Therefore, the 30° inclination angle is the optimal choice for the film holes near the APG region of the serpentine nozzle.

Avionics Architecture Design for Military Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper describes the design of the avionics architecture for military unmanned aerial vehicles considering the airworthiness requirements for the first time. This design considers the redundancy in the system data bus and the power system and the data link system to meet the system safety requirements of the airworthiness requirements of military UAVs. This avionics architecture design has been verified through the system integration test and the flight test after manufacturing the UAV.

Facilitating the Work of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operators Using Artificial Intelligence: An Intelligent Filter for Command-and-Control Maps to Reduce Cognitive Workload.

Evaluating the ability of a Gibsonian-inspired artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to reduce the cognitive workloads of military Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operators. Military UAV operators use the command-and-control (C2) map for developing mission-relevant situation awareness (SA). Yet C2 maps are overloaded with information, mostly irrelevant to the mission, causing operators to neglect the map altogether. To reduce irrelevant information, an intelligent filtering algorithm was developed. Here we evaluate its effectiveness in reducing operators' cognitive workloads. Two-stage operational scenarios were conducted with professional ex-military UAV operators, using two filter protocols and a no-filter control. High-end real-time techniques were used to continuously assess workload from muscle behavior and machine learning models. Lower cognitive workload was found when applying the algorithm's protocols, especially when fatigue started to accumulate (Stage II). However, concerns about the quality of SA arose. The algorithm was positively evaluated for its ability to reduce operators' cognitive workloads. More evaluations of operators' SA are required. The algorithm demonstrates the possibility of integrating AI to improve human performance in complex systems, and can be applied to other domains where spatial-temporal information needs to be contextually filtered in real time.

SOC Estimation of Lithium-ion Battery Based on RLS-EKF for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

In recent years, in the civil and military unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) market, the demand for UAV is increasing day by day, the iteration cycle of UAV products is significantly shortened, and UAV has developed rapidly. Among them, lithium battery has the advantages of high energy density, lightweight and bendability. At present, as the main power source of electric UAV, lithium battery affects the range and flight time of UAV, and is the key factor that directly restricts the development and application of UAV. Therefore, accurate estimation of battery state of charge (SOC) has always been the focus and difficulty in the field of UAV battery research. This paper mainly improves the accuracy of SOC estimation of power battery from the following aspects:First, the significance of researching power batteries is clarified, the advantages of lithium-ion power batteries are pointed out, the definition of SOC and its influencing factors are discussed, and the common methods of battery SOC estimation are more comprehensively introduced and analyzed.Next, a second-order RC network equivalent circuit model that is convenient for engineering realization is established, and its state-space model is deduced. The SOC-OCV relationship was measured.Then, the recursive least squares (RLS) method suitable for real-time calculation is used to identify the parameters of the equivalent circuit model of lithium-ion battery on-line, and the parameters of the equivalent circuit model are identified under UDDS conditions, which proves the correctness and rationality of the identification method.Finally, it is proposed to use the extended Kalman filter (EKF) algorithm to estimate the SOC of the lithium-ion battery, that is, use the EKF algorithm to estimate the open circuit voltage of the battery, and then estimate the battery SOC according to the open circuit voltage method. The accuracy of the joint estimation algorithm to estimate SOC is verified under simulated conditions.

БЕСПИЛОТНЫЕ ЛЕТАТЕЛЬНЫЕ АППАРАТЫ ТУРЦИИ: РАЗВИТИЕ И ТЕХНИЧЕСКИЕ ПОКАЗАТЕЛИ

The paper analyzes the development of the Turkish military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), assesses the technical complexity of various models of the MALE class and kamikaze drones, the volume and factors of the Turkish UAV export growth. The indicators and analysis results given in the work show that Turkish UAVs are inferior in their technical characteristics to the UAVs of the USA and Israel, however, due to their lower cost and verification in real combat conditions, their export is expanding, especially to Ukraine and countries close to the Russian borders, that creates certain threats in the conditions of combat operations and the strengthening of global instability for Russia.

Solving “Limited” Task Allocation Problem for UAVs Based on Optimization Algorithms

With the rapid development of science and technology, unmanned technology has been widely used in many fields. One of the most important applications is in the field of civil and military UAVs. In the field of military UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), UAVs usually have to complete a series of tasks. In this series of tasks, there are often some key tasks. Key tasks play an important role, which is highly related to the feasibility of the whole action or task; mission failure sometimes causes incalculable damage. When assigning tasks to UAVs, it is necessary to ensure the accurate implementation of key tasks, so as to ensure the orderly implementation of the overall task. This paper not only successfully solved the previous problems but also comprehensively considered the minimization of resource consumption and the maximization of task revenue in the process of UAV task allocation. On the basis of considering the key system, considering the constraints and multiobjective problems in the UAV task allocation process, the violence allocation algorithm, constraint optimization evolutionary algorithm, PSO algorithm, and greedy algorithm combined with a constraint evolutionary algorithm are improved and optimized; it has been proven that they can solve the above difficulties. At the same time, several comparison experiments have been carried out; the performance and conclusion of the above four algorithms in the “limited” UAV task allocation scheme are analyzed in the experimental part.

Rapid Interpretation of Temporal–Spatial Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Operational Data – RITSUD: Aiding UAV Operators With Visualizations of Patterns-of-Life Activities

To accomplish their missions, the operators of military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) aggregate and process information from multiple sources under time constraints, while experiencing partial sensory deprivation. We aimed to design, develop, and evaluate the need for designated information aids in the form of visualizations of spatial and temporal patterns-of-life for specific operational mission phases. In an evaluation conducted to assess the usefulness of the proposed visualizations, experienced UAV operators from two nations were presented with five scenarios in a narrative format. Each scenario contained one information-aid visualization for a specific mission phase. Participants had to interpret each mission phase and rate the information aid. Results showed that, in general, most operators favored the aids, but their appreciation of specific aids depended on the mission phase. There were also statistically significant differences between the nations. The results emphasize the potential for equipping UAV operators with information aids in the form of visualizations of spatial and temporal patterns-of-life. Moreover, the findings underline the need for more rigorous analyses of operators’ missions, as the need for specific visualizations was shown to vary with mission phase, and some visualizations were found to be more widely useful than others.

Experimental Heat Loads for Electrothermal Anti-Icing and De-Icing on UAVs

Atmospheric in-flight icing on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is a significant hazard. UAVs that are not equipped with ice protection systems are usually limited to operations within visual line of sight or to weather conditions without icing risk. As many military and commercial UAV missions require flights beyond visual line of sight and into adverse weather conditions, energy-efficient ice protection systems are required. In this experimental study, two electro-thermal ice protection systems for fixed-wing UAVs were tested. One system was operated in anti-icing and de-icing mode, and the other system was designed as a parting strip de-icing system. Experiments were conducted in an icing wind tunnel facility for varying icing conditions at low Reynolds numbers. A parametric study over the ice shedding time was used to identify the most energy-efficient operation mode. The results showed that longer intercycle durations led to higher efficiencies and that de-icing with a parting strip was superior compared to anti-icing and de-icing without a parting strip. These findings are relevant for the development of energy-efficient systems in the future.

Analysis of the military application of unmanned aircraft and main direction for their development

Modern military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are assigned a wide range of functions, for the implementation of which they perform many tasks in various military conflicts. The results of the analysis give them the opportunity to reveal the problems in the use of UAVs, make changes in their functions and tasks and identify areas for further development. At present, this requires the introduction of the achievements of artificial intelligence, the introduction of expert systems and microelectronics on board UAVs, as well as their integration with various other means of conducting armed struggle. At the same time, some of the technological solutions for the creation and improvement of UAVs for military purposes can be applied in the civilian sector.

Study of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Flight Capabilities in the Aspect of Civil and Military Aviation Safety

The article discusses the issues related to the adaptation of flights performed by military unmanned aerial vehicles in Poland (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – UAV) to the civil aviation requirements. The unmanned aerial vehicles’ flight capabilities were discussed from the perspective of using the automatic flight control system to minimise a threat to civil and military aviation. Owing to the growing interest of the European Union (EU) in unmanned systems, there are many threats related to the broadly understood traffic safety in the European airspace.

A Comprehensive Review of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Attacks and Neutralization Techniques

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have revolutionized the aircraft industry in this decade. UAVs are now capable of carrying out remote sensing, remote monitoring, courier delivery, and a lot more. A lot of research is happening on making UAVs more robust using energy harvesting techniques to have a better battery lifetime, network performance and to secure against attackers. UAV networks are many times used for unmanned missions. There have been many attacks on civilian, military, and industrial targets that were carried out using remotely controlled or automated UAVs. This continued misuse has led to research in preventing unauthorized UAVs from causing damage to life and property. In this paper, we present a literature review of UAVs, UAV attacks, and their prevention using anti-UAV techniques. We first discuss the different types of UAVs, the regulatory laws for UAV activities, their use cases, recreational, and military UAV incidents. After understanding their operation, various techniques for monitoring and preventing UAV attacks are described along with case studies.

A Case Study on the Evolutionary Development of U.S Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

In October 2018, the Korean Army established a Dronebot unit. The future battleground is expected to be led by drones and robots. However, in order to utilize new weapons systems such as drones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the Korean army, it is necessary to go through complicated and long-term defense acquisition procedures, which make it difficult to adopt and reflect the latest technologies immediately. The purpose of this study is to derive some implications for the efficient development and acquisition of UAVs in Korea through in-depth case analysis on the evolutionary development and acquisition of U.S. military UAVs. Accordingly, this study focused on the tactical/strategic U.S. fixed-wing UAVs which have been developed and mass-produced since 1990s, weighing more than 150kg. They include Shadow-200 as brigade/division-level UAV, Predator and Reaper as midium altitude UAVs, and Global Hawk as high altitude UAV. These must not only satisfy the required operational capability (ROC), but also receive strict airworthiness certification. Among them, Predator and Global Hawk were carried out as New Conceptual Technology Development Demonstration (ACTD), and prototypes under development were put into the Middle East battle. Although there were several accidents, flexible development processes such as system development or initial mass production were applied after ACTD. The initial target performance was set to be low and operability verification was prioritized, and the performance was improved through the evolutionary development of initial low rate mass production, subsequent mass production, and subsequent performance improvement. Despite the initial mass production phase, all required performance was not confirmed, and the required performance was presented in a range of flexibility. On the other hand, there have been large-scale changes such as engine replacement, aircraft change and communication systems upgrade to improve performance. Mission equipment was developed separately and applied to mass production when operability was confirmed. In the process of the development and acquisition of these UAVs, unforeseen accidents, huge losses and increased costs happened, but the U.S. government continued to pursue an evolutionary development policy for military drones. Therefore, in developing and acquiring new high-tech military unmanned aerial vehicles, it is necessary for Korea to develop and acquire them based on operability in the initial development stage, and to enhance its combat capabilities by improving its performance in the stages of initial mass production, follow-up mass production and performance improvement.

A 480 kW/liter direct injection jet ignition rotary valve super-turbocharged positive ignition methanol engine

The potentials of direct injection (DI) and jet ignition (JI), assisted turbocharging, and rotary valves to deliver high efficiency, high power density positive ignition (PI) internal combustion engines (ICEs) is here investigated. DI JI and assisted turbocharging has demonstrated to permit ICEs able to deliver peak efficiency above 50% and power density of 340 kW/liter at the 15,000 rpm revolution limiter working overall λ = 1.45 with gasoline. The further improvement in power density that may be obtained by replacing poppet valves with rotary valves, while also using mechanical, rather than electric, assisted turbocharging, are here numerically investigated A numerical rotary valve ICE, that is adopting super-turbocharging is developed. Results of simulations show the opportunity, working overall λ = 1.45 with methanol, power densities of 480 kW/liter, while also delivering an about constant torque, and a consequently nearly linear power curve, over an extremely wide range of speeds, up to 24,000 rpm. With gasoline, the power density is 450 kW/liter. The proposed engine design could be used to revive IndyCar racing, with methanol, for improved performance and technical appeal, or in military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with gasoline, for enhanced range, altitude, payload, and maneuverability.

How reliable should military UAVs be?

The recent decade has witnessed an emerging usage of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in both military and civilian applications. Compared with manned aircraft, a much larger percentage of UAVs are reported to crash every year, due to its unmanned nature and immature technologies. The high failure rate is mainly attributed to the lack of redundancy design and insufficient reliability growth tests. It is natural to ask whether the UAVs are reliable enough, and to what extent we shall improve the reliability of the UAVs. Through cost modeling, this study shows that the designed reliability for military UAVs needs not be extremely high. The main reason is that military UAVs are exposed to external threats such as enemy fire and cyber-attacks. Reliability enhancement actions are able to improve the operational reliability, but cannot ease the external threats to the UAVs. In our UAV cost models, both the reliability enhancement actions using reliability growth test and external failures due to intentional attacks are considered, based on which the optimal reliability growth duration that minimizes the total operation cost is derived. We investigate the impacts of the reliability growth pattern and the intensity of external threats on the effectiveness of the reliability growth test. Particularly, the external threats can weaken the effectiveness of the reliability growth test in terms of the overall operation cost. An illustrative example is used to demonstrate our model and support our results.

Effects of injection timing and compression ratio on the combustion performance and emissions of a two-stroke DISI engine fuelled with aviation kerosene

In recent years, many civilian and military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been powered by spark ignition (SI) piston engines fuelled with gasoline. However, the safety problems associated with the storage and transportation of gasoline are forcing manufacturers and researchers to develop an SI piston engine fuelled with heavy fuel, such as light diesel or aviation kerosene. In this study, the effects of injection timing and compression ratio on the combustion characteristics and emissions of a two-stroke engine fuelled with aviation kerosene rocket propellant 3 (RP-3) are investigated. The engine tests were carried out on a two-stroke, air cooled, direct injection, spark ignition engine at three compression ratios (7.2, 6.2, and 5.2) and injection timings from 120° crank angle (CA) before top dead center (BTDC) to 240° CA BTDC. The engine was run at 4000 rpm, 100% throttle opening, and spark timing at knock limited spark advance.The results showed that the brake power (BP) increased and the coefficient of variation of the indicated mean effective pressure (COVIMEP) decreased with the advance in injection timing. The best brake thermal efficiency (BTE) was obtained at a direct injection timing of 150 °CA BTDC. Hydrocarbon (HC) and nitric oxide (NO) emissions increased while carbon monoxide (CO) emission decreased as the direct injection timing advanced. The compression ratios were decreased from 7.2 to 5.2, and the maximum values of BP and BTE were obtained at the compression ratio of 6.2. However, the HC and NO emissions at the compression ratio of 6.2 were greater than those under other compression ratios.

A Robust Model-Predictive Guidance System for Autonomous Vehicles in Cluttered Environments

This paper proposes a system for guidance of autonomous vehicles based on a generalized robust model-predictive control (R-MPC) technique. It offers two scenarios, in which R-MPC is used to provide optimized motion plans guaranteed to satisfy constraints and avoid obstacles in the presence of bounded uncertainty. The first scenario involves a military unmanned aerial vehicle flying over a target, while avoiding enemy defenses. The second scenario involves an assistive care robot safely navigating to waypoints throughout a cluttered home. In each case, obstacles are represented as a collection of linear inequality constraints that adapt to changes in the environment. Results show that when R-MPC is formulated using a series of positive-semidefinite relaxations on linear inequality constraints, safe optimum trajectories can be planned by solving a convex quadratic program. When formulated in terms of perturbations on feedback predictions, this solution is guaranteed to be robustly stable.

Беспилотные летательные аппараты военного назначения: тенденции в сфере разработок и производства

Мировой рынок беспилотных летательных аппаратов (БПЛА) военного назначения рос быстрыми темпами в последние два десятилетия. Этот рост продолжится и в следующем десятилетии: в особенности вырастут продажи разведывательных и ударных БПЛА. Разработки по БПЛА будут сосредоточены на таких направлениях, как новые материалы, электроника, системы питания, двигателестроение, искусственный интеллект, повышение автономности, противодействие средствам радиоэлектронной борьбы и т. п. В настоящий момент Россия отстает от США, Китая, Израиля и некоторых других стран в области исследований и разработок, а также серийного производства и закупок для нужд вооруженных сил некоторых видов БПЛА.

Predictive feedback augmentation for manual control of an unmanned aerial vehicle with latency

Teleoperation of unmanned aerial vehicles is hampered by communication delay, which causes feedback from command inputs to take considerable time to be displayed to the operator. For an international internet connection, round trip latencies can reach 500 ms. The satellite connections used for military unmanned aerial vehicles can have latencies in the order of seconds. This delay presents a substantial control problem, which has been solved in the past by control abstraction (instead of “roll left” the aircraft might be instructed “go to these coordinates”). Manual control remains difficult. This study borrows the client-side prediction concept from multiplayer video games to attempt to address the control delay to allow manual control. An estimate of the change in the vehicle state due to the commands that are yet to affect the feedback is computed and then the feedback that the pilot receives is modified to reflect this predicted change. Because of this change, the pilot can see immediately the effect of the control inputs. This study has explored the concept and built a prototype system functional in real time for flight testing with qualitative results presented.