What's the use of unmanned aircraft?

This is the original purpose of UAV, which can be used for testing and training ground air defense and air combat weapons. For example, the MD2R5 UAV developed by Northrop Corporation in the United States has a maximum flying height of 8,250 meters and can be equipped with infrared streamers and radar signals. Unmanned aerial vehicle intensifiers can also be used as targets for artillery and missiles. Ryan's BQM-34 UAV has a flying speed of Mach 1.5 and a flying height of 1.83 million meters, which can be used to simulate enemy fighters. Facing the increasingly serious threat of anti-ship missiles, the US Navy also developed the BQM-74C sea-skimming UAV to evaluate the shipborne anti-missile system.

Reconnaissance and surveillance

This is also one of the earliest uses of drones. Unmanned reconnaissance aircraft can go deep into the front of the position and behind enemy lines for one or two hundred kilometers, or even more. It relies on visible light cameras, movie cameras, standard or low-light-level television cameras, infrared scanners and radars installed on aircraft to complete various reconnaissance and surveillance tasks. Generally speaking, unmanned aerial vehicles can carry one or several kinds of reconnaissance equipment, work according to predetermined procedures or ground instructions, and finally transmit the obtained information and images back to the ground at any time for use by relevant departments; You can also record all the information obtained and use it once when the drone is recycled. With the development and application of high-tech, the performance of equipment on UAV is also improving. At the same time, some new equipment has been added, and the application scope has been further expanded. If equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS), UAV can cooperate with reconnaissance satellites and manned reconnaissance planes to form a three-dimensional aerial reconnaissance and surveillance network with high, medium and low altitude, multi-level and multi-orientation, which makes the obtained intelligence information more accurate and reliable.

Bait to deceive the enemy

Using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to attract enemy firepower or the whole air defense system, and then destroy or destroy it, has been developed for UAV in recent twenty years.

pilotless aircraft

New use. As bait, the main task of UAV is to cooperate with other electronic reconnaissance equipment for bait reconnaissance; Or as a penetration tool to provide air defense suppression for manned aircraft; Or cooperate with anti-radiation weapons to suppress and destroy enemy air defense systems. To this end, this drone is different from other drones. In order to improve the deception effect as bait, some measures are often taken, such as specially designing and installing appropriate electronic equipment to make it have similar maneuverability and signal characteristics as the simulated target; Install passive devices such as corner reflectors to increase the radar reflection area of drones; Install RF amplification equipment to enhance radar reflection signal. In short, do everything possible to make the enemy easy to find and attract the attention of the enemy. Generally speaking, when the decoy drone performs the decoy task, it first imitates the manned aircraft to fly tactically over the forward position to stimulate or induce the radar in the enemy air defense weapon system to turn on, and then its own reconnaissance equipment takes the opportunity to complete the reconnaissance task. When used as a penetration tool, UAV reaches the target area protected by enemy air defense system from the side before its own attack fleet, confusing enemy radar and consuming enemy air defense weapons. These drones are deeply deceptive because of measures such as increasing radar reflection cross-sectional area and signal strength. The enemy radar will intercept these false targets first, but it is difficult to identify them, which leads to the transmission of these wrong information to the enemy fire control radar system and air defense weapons. In this way, on the one hand, the enemy air defense radar network can spend a lot of time dealing with these false targets, on the other hand, the enemy weapon system will fire or launch missiles at them, consuming air defense firepower, thus reducing the threat to its own attack aircraft. Facts have proved that decoy drones have played a very important role in several local wars. For example, in the 1973 Fourth Middle East War, Israel used the U.S. partridge drone as bait to deceive the enemy's air defense firepower and cover its own aircraft attack. It is reported that 65,438+0 drones induced 32 Sam missiles to be launched at them. Subsequently, Israeli F-4 fighter jets and A- 14 attack aircraft followed closely and successfully completed the attack mission on the Egyptian position.

Intervene

System interference, so that its communication is interrupted and the command fails. At present, the development trend is to jam radar and communication at the same time. Because it is impossible to completely jam all radars in the enemy area, the information about the target obtained by the radar that has not been suppressed by jamming can be transmitted to the radar position that has been jammed through the communication line. Therefore, only by jamming radar and communication system at the same time can enemy anti-aircraft guns and missile positions not get the required intelligence information. To this end, a drone can be equipped with two or more jamming devices at the same time, which can be used flexibly as needed; It can also be a cooperative operation between two or more UAVs with different purposes or between UAVs and electronic warfare aircraft. "Monarch" system developed in Britain is an integrated system, which uses multiple drones to carry electronic reconnaissance equipment, radar jamming equipment and communication jamming equipment respectively, and fly over enemy positions to perform electronic warfare tasks. In terms of photoelectric countermeasures, the potential of drones is also very eye-catching. Smoke-making device can be installed to disintegrate the enemy's photoelectric guided weapon attack. It can also be equipped with a flash lamp as an infrared bait to deflect the enemy's infrared guided weapons; It can also be used to accurately put the tracer into the required position by using its characteristics of flexibility and long air time.

Ground attack

As an air vehicle, UAV can also carry a variety of ground attack weapons, fly to the front line or go deep into enemy-occupied areas to attack ground military targets; Air-to-surface missiles or bombs can be used to suppress enemy air defense weapons; Attacking tanks or tank groups with anti-tank missiles; Bomb the assembly point of ground troops with weapons such as cluster bombs. Especially worth mentioning is the anti-radiation attack drone. This is a weapon system that uses the electromagnetic wave signal radiated by enemy radar to find, track and eventually destroy the radar. Not only can it be used to attack enemy radar, jammer and other radiation sources, but it can also be used to attack enemy early warning aircraft and special electronic jammers after the high-speed anti-radiation UAV is equipped with composite guidance devices and other equipment. The American Brave 200 and the German KDAR belong to anti-radar drones. KDAR adopts a tailless cross wing layout, which can be folded and put into a standard container of 6. 1 m3. The container is not only the packaging for storage and transportation, but also the launching device, and each container can hold 20 KDAR drones.

Calibration effect

Mainly used for fire guidance and shooting effect evaluation. The goshawk produced by Lockheed in the United States is such a drone. It is equipped with a range finder. Automatic tracking TV camera, laser pen and thermal imager can transmit position correction instructions to the ground through anti-jamming data link, and can indicate targets for copperhead laser-guided artillery shells and airborne Helfa anti-tank missiles.

Communication relay

For example, Pioneer UAV in the United States is equipped with anti-jamming spread spectrum communication equipment, high-power solid-state amplifier, omnidirectional VHF and UHF radio relay equipment. , data, signal, voice and image communication can be carried out in C band, and the communication distance is 185 km. In addition to the above seven functions, drones have special functions that other aircraft do not have. One is low cost. The cost of drones is usually between tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Compared with manned aircraft, the price gap is very large, which is equivalent to1100 ~11000. Uav operators only need half a year's regular training, while training a manned pilot must go through more than four years of special training, which is expensive. When unmanned aerial vehicles perform the same tasks as manned aircraft, the fuel consumption is also quite small, usually accounting for only l% of that of manned aircraft. Second, it has good concealment and strong viability. The length of UAV is basically within 10 meter, and its weight is mostly between 1 ~ 2 tons. So it is very agile in the air, and it is difficult for all kinds of detection equipment to find its whereabouts. Third, it is easy to use and has good adaptability. Drones can be launched at close range or directly; It can take off not only on the highway, but also on the beach and desert, so it can be widely used in the front line. The recovery of drones is also very convenient, which can be recovered by parachutes and blocking nets, or by landing gear, sleigh and belly. For example, the CL-227 Sentinel UAV in Canada can also take off and land vertically like a helicopter. In addition, the UAV can adapt to various environments, can enter and leave the polluted areas of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons without scruple, and can fly continuously under various complex meteorological conditions.