The development of artificial intelligence (IA) finds more and more space in the field of experimentation with military drones.
To this empirical datum, which essentially comes from the observation of what is happening all over the world, China certainly could not escape seeking to take the leadership in the AI sector to the US by the 2030.
The news comes from Beijing, published by the Global Times1 days ago, development by Zhuhai Ziyan, a company in the Guandong region that produces drones, of a new family of machines capable of operating within one swarm (swarm intelligence2), that is, a variable group of specimens, all capable of performing independently3 the assigned mission.
The new technology developed by the company allows ben 10 unmanned helicopters (UAVs) by fit into a swarm with a load of weapons and variable ammunition depending on the mission.
"With a simple push of a button ”- the statement released by Zhuhai Ziyan reads - "the drones are able to take off autonomously, to rejoin at a later time to the other machines and continue towards the designated target".
Once the order is received, the machines attack the target at the same time, despite the wider coordination of flight and fire governed by the artificial intelligence that guides them, and return to the base at the end of the action.
The development of "swarm technology"Is part of the broader experimentation / production of a large family of drones destined largely for military use.
In April, the Guandong company had submitted to the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition-2019 (LIMA) in Malaysia4 il Blowfish A2: a 1,87 meters long drone for 0,62 meters high, able to fly at a speed of 130 km / h, with a maximum takeoff weight of 38kg and a payload of 12kg.
At the most recent salon IDEF 2019 held in Turkey at the beginning of May, instead it exhibited other specimens already in production including: the Blowfish A3 long 2 meters and wide 0,5 meters, capable of carrying machine guns of various types, mortar projectiles from 60 mm or a grenade launcher from 35-40 millimeters; theInfiltrator who can launch rockets and missiles and the Parus S1, ideal for suicide missions.
All machines that increase the effectiveness of interventions in non-permissive environments, drastically limiting the danger of human loss.
And that in the configuration of use with swarms promise a lethality never seen before.
2 Wikipedia: "swarm intelligence" (a swarm intelligence) is a term coined for the first time in 1988 da Gerardo Beni, Susan Hackwood and Jing Wang following a system-inspired project robotic. It takes into consideration the study of the systems self-organized, in which a complex action derives from a collective intelligence, as happens in nature in the case of colonie of insects or stormi of birds, or shoals of fish, or herds of mammals. According to the definition of Beni and Watt, swarm intelligence can be defined as: "propertiesà a system in which the collective behavior of (non-sophisticated) agents interacting locally with the environment produces the emergence of global functional patterns in the system". (Useful for "displaying" the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axxXz2BM0yw)
3 An "autonomous" system, instead, reasons on a probabilistic basis: received a series of inputs, elaborates the best answers. Unlike what happens with automated systems, an autonomous system, with the same input, can produce different answers.
To know more:
https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2...
4https://defenseworld.net/news/24569/Weirdly_Shaped_Chinese_Attack_Drone_...
Images: Ziyan UAV
