Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 470 Ant Bee Drone System

On the outskirts of Shenzhen, in the testing ground of Dongning Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Liuhe Investment.

Xu Shenxue was accompanying a group of guests to watch the prototype of the swarm drone in front.

The person in charge of Dongning Technology continued to explain: "Our AntBee drone system is developed based on artificial intelligence technology. It does not require any human intervention and can make decisions on its own. At the same time, different terminals can exchange information with each other. It is a 'swarm aircraft system'."

"Traditional small drones, whether they are multi-rotor drones or fixed-wing drones, all require remote control by operators at the rear, and the remote control radio signals are very easy to be interfered with. At the same time, small drones are limited by the device system, signal transmission and the power of the receiving equipment, and their direct remote control distance is relatively short!"

"After all, they can't be equipped with satellite communication terminals like medium and large drones, and remotely controlled via satellite signals, but doing so will also result in very high communication delays."

"It is easy to be interfered with, the communication distance is short, and if it is controlled directly by remote control, it is also difficult for the other party's electronic reconnaissance equipment to search the position of the operator in the rear, thus threatening the safety of the operator!"

"We have conducted a lot of simulations on this point before. We have also developed a drone signal positioning and detection system. It can locate the position of the operator behind the drone based on the drone's communication signal, and then guide long-range weapons such as artillery to carry out precise strikes!"

"These are the disadvantages of traditional radio-controlled drones. In order to change this situation, new technical means have emerged, such as the use of fiber-optic remote control mode, but the remote control distance of the fiber-optic remote control mode will be greatly limited."

"For these problems exposed by traditional remote-controlled drones, we believe that the only solution is to allow drones to perform tasks on their own without remote control!"

"Without the need for remote control, communication interference, threats to operator safety caused by radio positioning, and short communication distances can be avoided!"

“Based on the above, we started the research and development of the artificial intelligence drone project!”

"After several years of research and development, we have achieved a major technological breakthrough. The AntBee drone system in front of us is our latest technological achievement!"

"Unlike traditional drones that fight alone, our AntBee drone system is a group combat system!"

"The smallest combat unit of the entire system is composed of a leader and five wingmen!"

"You can see that there are obvious differences in size and appearance between the lead and wingman of our AntBee drone system. The lead is relatively larger, and its design is more focused on payload and endurance rather than maneuverability and speed!"

"The wingman is relatively smaller, and its design is more inclined towards speed and maneuverability."

As the person in charge explained, Xu Shenxue also looked carefully at the two drones in front of him. Just as the person in charge said, the appearance of these two drones is very different. People who don’t know the inside story will probably think that these are different drone systems and will not regard them as the same system.

Moreover, both drones are small fixed-wing drones, not multi-rotor drones as many people think of small drones.

The person in charge continued to explain: "Although there are relatively large differences in the body design and appearance of the two drones, they both use a pop-up folding wing design and use the same launch rack."

As he spoke, the person in charge pointed to a device similar to a rocket launcher and said, "According to our design, one launch kit can launch a group of Ant Bee systems, that is, one leader and five wingmen. These six small unmanned aircraft form a basic combat unit to carry out missions!"

"However, this is just the normal mode. If necessary, we can also use a single lead aircraft or wingman to perform the mission. However, in this case, the performance of a single wingman will be reduced due to the lack of computing power support from the lead aircraft!"

"The reason why we adopted the mode of combining the lead aircraft and the wingman is to balance the range. There are also issues of payload, maneuverability and computing power!"

“Although we have adopted the most advanced computing chips and have repeatedly innovated the underlying core algorithms, it is still difficult to obtain sufficient computing power support on small drones!”

"In addition, the research on networking and computing power between drones has also encountered great difficulties. For example, the amount of data for parallel computing is too large, and the requirements for communication modules are too high. The existing wireless communication modules cannot support the existing artificial intelligence wireless networking computing at all!"

Host networking computing in artificial intelligence systems is not a new thing... Take any server GPU array and you will find that they are all cross-host networking models.

But they use dedicated network cards for wired networking... The cables they use have a huge data transmission capacity, so there is no need to worry about data transmission speed issues... and no need to worry about interference.

However, it is extremely difficult to use wireless communication networking and computing on a drone. The data transmission speed cannot be increased at all... and even such a small data transmission speed is extremely easy to be interfered with!
When artificial intelligence systems perform parallel computing, massive amounts of data are transmitted to each other. If they are electronically interfered by the other party at this time and massive amounts of data are lost... then what does that matter?
Therefore, the engineers of Dongning Technology finally gave up the wireless computing networking solution between drones...the transmission speed could not be increased and it was too easy to be interfered with.

And once interfered with, the consequences are extremely serious.

"So we changed our thinking and tried a single drone self-computing model, but this also encountered great difficulties. Limited by size, load, power supply and other limitations, it is difficult for us to achieve efficient data processing in a single small drone while maintaining the aircraft's endurance, load and maneuverability!"

"Even if it can be realized, the cost will be higher, which does not conform to the design concept of a small drone that can be used once!"

"Of course, we have successfully achieved this balance of performance on a larger medium-sized drone with a stronger payload capacity, but that is another of our ongoing projects, the Swift System, a medium-sized stealth AI unmanned attack aircraft with a diamond layout without a vertical tail. I will take you to see the system later!"

"As for the small drone system, we finally adopted a split-in-two approach. We no longer insisted on integrating all the above requirements into one small drone. Instead, we separated them into two parts. One drone performs a large amount of data processing and acts as the command leader. The other parts maintain the necessary computing power, basic autonomous flight and mission execution capabilities, while improving the drone's endurance, payload, maneuverability and other performance as much as possible."

"This model is somewhat similar to the relationship between early warning aircraft and fighter jets, but our system is more balanced!"

"During the mission, our wingman will collect various sensory information on its own, process it on its own, and maintain basic autonomous flight and mission execution capabilities."

"After the perception information is processed locally, the calculation results will be transmitted to the leader through a dedicated anti-interference communication mode. After the leader integrates the perception information of multiple wingmen and the information collected by itself, it will centrally calculate and assign tasks."

"The mission instructions will be transmitted to the wingman through the anti-interference radio communication system, and the wingman will then perform the specific mission!"

"At the same time, we also considered the situation where even the anti-interference communication mode was interfered in a complex electromagnetic environment, resulting in the loss of communication between the leader and the wingman."

"Therefore, our wingman also has the basic ability to perform tasks autonomously, but there will be a certain degree of decline in intelligence and information perception."

"The lead aircraft will not be affected too much and still have full combat capability and can perform tasks on its own. However, its speed and maneuverability are slightly lower, so it may not be able to deal with high-agility targets. It also carries less ammunition!"
Following the explanation by the person in charge, Xu Shenxue also had a clearer understanding of the two seemingly different small pop-up fixed-wing drones in front of him.

To be honest, this is not the same as the swarm system he had expected... He also did not expect that the R&D personnel would come up with this mode of combining the leader and wingman.

However, he also knows that this is a helpless choice due to the current insufficient technical conditions.

At this time, someone asked: "If there is interference and communication is cut off, how much mission execution capability can this wingman have?"

The person in charge of Dongning Technology said: "According to our tests, there will be different degrees of decline in different modes. The path planning ability will drop to about 70%. This is mainly reflected in the long-distance strategic path planning during the entire mission execution process. The path planning within the short distance, that is, the flight ability will not be affected. After all, the wingman itself has the ability to fly autonomously, which has nothing to do with the leader!"
"In terms of target judgment and decision-making, we expect a 90% performance degradation, which is mainly reflected in the target data analysis of the target's image, infrared characteristics, and electromagnetic characteristics. This part requires relatively large computing power support, while the computing power of the wingman is relatively limited." "However, after our actual tests, this part of the performance degradation is more reflected in the priority selection of strike targets. Sometimes when the wingman strikes the target autonomously, its target selection is not consistent with that of our human operators. It will choose the secondary target that the human operator considers, rather than the primary target!"

"That is to say, without the command of the leader, the local computing power of the wingman is not enough to support the analysis of the threat level and attack sequence of multiple targets, and provide the system with better priority attack decisions. Sometimes, multiple wingmen will attack the same target at the same time."

The person at the side continued to ask: "If that's the case, then it's acceptable. As long as we can hit the target, the order is not very important!"

As long as it can attack the enemy independently, it is a good thing. Other so-called minor defects are nothing in the eyes of many people.

Some people at the scene even thought that although the mode of using the lead aircraft and the wingman together was good, the single-flight mode was also important in a complex and ever-changing battlefield...

They all thought that if a single drone carried by one or two people on foot in a high-threat area on the front line received the target location detected by a reconnaissance drone or satellite, they could directly release the drone and let it run over and attack the target...

Instead of driving a launch vehicle to pull drones around, and then launching six or more drones at a time...

This allows for a more flexible deployment model.

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At this time, the person in charge of Dongning Technology began to explain the detailed technical indicators of this system. However, apart from the core artificial intelligence part, the rest is actually not much different from some remote-controlled cruise missiles.

The longer aircraft is larger, with a flight time of up to 30 minutes, a cruising speed of 80 kilometers per hour, a designed maximum range of 35 kilometers, and is equipped with a high-performance onboard computing system, as well as an additional low-orbit satellite navigation and communication system.

The wingman is smaller, with a flight time of the same 30 minutes, a cruising speed of 120 kilometers per hour, a dive speed of 300 kilometers per hour, a maximum range of 40 kilometers, and is equipped with a basic computing system and communication system. It has good maneuverability and can carry a payload of 2.5 kilograms!"

When it was introduced in detail, the people who came to inspect were not very interested in the long machine. They were skeptical of any mode that could be interfered with. Since it could be interfered with, the value of this long machine was also questionable.

Therefore, they are more interested in the wingman, a drone that fights completely alone...even if it is a little dumber!
At this time, the person in charge of Dongxing Technology said: "In addition, we have equipped these two drones with a remote control command system, so they can be switched between manned and unmanned at any time. At the same time, if the remote control mode fails, the drone will automatically enter the artificial intelligence mode!"

After hearing this, the people who came to inspect became more interested in the wingman.

Xu Shenxue also took a look around, but he was not very interested in this thing... Although the technical content of this thing is quite high, it is just so-so in Xu Shenxue's opinion.

Compared with System X, this so-called artificial intelligence drone is a moron...

In Xu Shenxue's eyes, an artificial intelligence fighter like the X system is a true artificial intelligence drone... Just looking at the appearance of the two aircraft, they are full of science fiction.

Moreover, it is extremely expensive and has extremely strong combat effectiveness!

To be honest, the AntBee system, a small artificial intelligence drone system in front of us, looks a bit like a toy.

Of course, he also knew that these toys were just as deadly!
Especially when this kind of toy is very cheap and the production capacity can be very large!
In order to reduce costs, the drones in the AntBee system actually use a large number of commercial components. The core AI chip part of the computing system directly uses the low-power version of the EYQ4 chip, and the motors and batteries are all mature commercial products.

In Dongning Technology’s quotation, the lead aircraft is more expensive, costing around 150,000 yuan, while the wingman’s unit price is only 100,000 yuan!

You know, this price is the selling price, which also includes a lot of research and development costs.

If we only talk about the actual manufacturing cost, it will be even lower, at most around 10,000 yuan.

Something that costs one hundred thousand yuan sounds quite expensive... But it should be noted that the combat targets of this Ant Bee system are various ground vehicles of the enemy, including tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, armored vehicles, artillery, radar vehicles, missile launchers, automatic air defense vehicles and other high-value targets on the ground!
And these targets are worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions!
One hundred thousand in exchange for a high-value target worth tens of millions, that would be a huge profit!
And precisely because the targets planned to be attacked are all high-value targets, so much emphasis is placed on anti-interference capabilities, and even artificial intelligence is further adopted to directly avoid electronic interference, and finally something like the AntBee drone system was created.

Because these high-value targets are often protected by electronic jamming equipment on or near them, artificial intelligence is the best solution to electronic jamming, and there is no other solution for now!

Foreign militaries don’t know this, but after Xu Shenxue’s desperate attempts to tinker with drones and witnessing the power of drones in countless tests, experiments, and exercises, they are now on guard against drones, and various technologies and equipment for interfering with drones are emerging one after another.

Even micro-missiles specifically designed to counter low, small, and slow drones have been developed...but this anti-drone system is a bit flashy and has a low cost-effectiveness.

Its own cost is higher than the cost of the conventional target it is intended to protect!

Moreover, when this kind of thing, which costs tens of millions of dollars, appears on the battlefield, it is much more conspicuous than a tank. There is a high probability that a few small drones will shoot them down, which will attract all kinds of expensive precision-guided munitions from the enemy!

Any air defense system is often the enemy’s first choice target!
As for what you said about this thing being able to counter small drones, it's very likely that no one will believe you... It's so big, and its appearance looks a bit sci-fi. No matter what you use it for, I'll just shoot a long-range precision-guided missile at you first!
Such a high-value target is worthy of the other side's dispatching fighter jets or even stealth fighter jets, and then launching a precision-guided missile at it from dozens of kilometers away.

Anti-UAV has become a cutting-edge technology research. Similarly, how to break through the electronic interference in the anti-UAV system and gain further penetration capability is also the core research direction of many people.

Dongning Technology, backed by the technical support of a series of high-tech companies such as Zhiyun Group, is a world leader in this field.

The AntBee drone system fully illustrates this point!
And it’s not just the AntBee drone system!
As a high-tech enterprise specializing in AI drone defense equipment manufacturers, they have many research and development projects, and the AntBee drone system is just one of them.

Among the achievements that have been made so far is the "Swift UAV System", a medium-sized stealth unmanned reconnaissance and attack aircraft with a diamond-shaped layout and no vertical tail.

Of course, this medium size only refers to small or micro drones... In fact, this Swift drone is a tiny thing compared to the AI ​​fighter jets in the X project that start at 20 to 30 tons.

"Our Swift UAV adopts the most advanced flying wing stealth UAV layout, and the air intake adopts the back air intake, so its stealth performance is very good!"

"The maximum flight time can reach ten hours, and it can continuously hover over the target area for reconnaissance. The limited payload can reach 20.5 kilograms, which can be used to launch optoelectronic reconnaissance systems and attack ammunition!"

"The aircraft is equipped with our artificial intelligence system, which can fly, sense, identify, and make decisions autonomously. It is also equipped with a remote control communication module to achieve the switch between manned and unmanned!"

Xu Shenxue looked at the Swift UAV and felt much better. At least it looked like an advanced UAV in appearance.

Unlike the previous AntBee drones, both the leader and the wingman were ugly...not quite in line with the appearance of traditional aircraft!

But this Swift drone in front of us is much better looking!
(End of this chapter)