Beijing: The Chinese military has claimed rapid advances in drone warfare, showcasing test results that one soldier could handle 200 drones using AI technology.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has released fresh details of its tests of AI-enabled drone swarm warfare, saying a single soldier can control a swarm of more than 200 drones.
In a defence news programme aired on Tuesday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV released details of a drone swarm test conducted by the PLA-affiliated National University of Defence Technology.
CCTV reported that through extensive offline training using both simulators and actual flights, the drone swarm developed strong autonomous intelligence.
The footage showed researchers monitoring the live status of multiple drones from a screen, with each described as being able to switch between reconnaissance, distraction, and striking tasks.
Xiang Xiaojia, a research fellow in the school of intelligent science at the National University of Defence Technology, told CCTV that “each drone is equipped with an intelligent algorithm. Through interconnection and autonomous negotiation, they can form a powerful, collaborative intelligent swarm.”
Xiang added that an autonomous anti-jamming algorithm had been developed and tested in an electromagnetic interference environment so that even when interfered with, drones equipped with this algorithm could autonomously plan flight paths and conduct swarm coverage searches.
In the footage, after electromagnetic interference knocked out the drone swarm’s ability to navigate and communicate, the drones entered autonomous mode for offline swarm searches for the enemy and to guide the launch of loitering munitions.
The programme highlighted China’s Swarm I land vehicle, known as a High Mobility Swarm Weapon System, as an important practical achievement in the field. CCTV said Swarm I could launch 48 fixed-wing drones as loitering munitions at once to operate in the air as a drone swarm.
According to the footage, the fixed-wing drones launched by Swarm I closely resemble American Switchblade drones.
The report said the new intelligent control module allowed drones launched by Swarm I to perform a precise division of labour and cooperation, with some conducting reconnaissance, some jamming and acting as decoys and others responsible for attack.
“Even a single person can control a swarm of more than 200 fixed-wing drones launched simultaneously from multiple vehicles,” CCTV reported.
