Aerial manned-unmanned teaming
unmanned combat aircraft supporting manned types
Aerial manned-unmanned teaming is the collaborative operation of manned and unmanned aircraft systems, typically in military contexts. The human pilot or crew of a manned aircraft controls, coordinates, or supervises one or more autonomous or semi-autonomous loyal wingman drones or unmanned fighter aircraft with loyal wingman capabilities or other types of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) to improve situational awareness, reduce risk, better perform in complex environments, and possibly reduce the need for crewed units.
Examples of the concept include the loyal wingman drone also known as collaborative combat aircraft (CCA). Loyal wingman drones are intended to operate with manned combat aircraft, including sixth-generation fighters, and use an artificial intelligence (AI) "autonomy package" to increase its ability to operate without explicit human direction.
Characteristics
Conceptualization
Unmanned systems, including but not limited to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), require remote control, with humans overseeing missions that unmanned systems perform semi- or automated mission segments. With advancements in electronics on both the unmanned system side and the controller side, increased mission autonomy was achieved, including automatic take-off and landing, autonomous mission planning, automatic target recognition, tracking, and engagement. Combined with artificial intelligence and machine learning, human operators gradually reduced their roles in direct control, instead took supervisory roles to approve or deny the machine’s decisions. The operation in which semi-autonomous systems perform specific tasks based on human orders is called Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T).
The highest autonomy level enables unmanned platforms to operate within integrated manned-unmanned teams, with one operator controlling multiple unmanned platforms, and when human control is unavailable, perform their mission independently. Manned-Unmanned Teaming ensures efficient and economic use of resources on the battlefield.
“Aerial manned-unmanned teaming” enters the record as unmanned combat aircraft supporting manned types. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Aerial, manned-unmanned and teaming can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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