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Helicóptero de 5ª generación:
A Clever One Will Fly Around the Mountain
A combat helicopter with artificial intelligence is being created in the Southern Federal Okrug
Russian engineers and designers have begun creation of a fifth generation multirole combat helicopter possessing artificial intelligence.
Thanks to the use of leading-edge technologies, the aircraft will be able to carry out combat even without a pilot's participation.
A discussion about what a fifth generation helicopters should be has been going on for a long time. Both in our country and abroad. But now they've gone from words to work. Development of the new helicopter is underway in secrecy. Its design features, weapons make-up and even the designation of the aircraft itself are not being disclosed.
They spoke about what a 21st helicopter will be at a meeting at Rostov-on-Don. Mi type transport and strike helicopters, which comprise the basis of Russia's ground forces air fleet, are produced here at the local factory. The military actually have agreed to publish conceptual ideas connected with the creation of the rotary-winged aircraft. One of the project's originator's, Aleksey Samusenko, the general designer of the Mil' design bureau, spoke about them especially for Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The new aircraft exceeds traditional helicopters so much in its characteristics and capabilities, that the developers deliberately do not call it a helicopter. The say simply, a vertical take-off flying apparatus. It will possess a number of functions distinguishing it from common rotary-winged aircraft.
Most of all, the notion of limitations on service life is supposed to disappear. In other words, this flying apparatus will test itself, give users (airmen and maintenance personnel) information about what needs to be improved, what assembly to correct and what part to replace so the aircraft is able to fly further. The notion "calendar service life" will cease to exist for it.
One of the more important problems is to teach the aircraft to think.
"The new flying apparatus will possess artificial intelligence," Aleksey Samusenko emphasized. "Thanks to the presence of artificial intelligence, it will be able to prompt an airman what actions need to be taken for execution of the flight assignment and how better to perform the mission for destroying an enemy. Though the assignment does not necessarily have to be combat. One can use the flying apparatus in the civilian sphere, too."
Artificial intelligence will allow the aircraft independently, to find a target without the airman's participation, to determine the means of its neutralization and to destroy the enemy. This functions is extremely important for a combat helicopter. If the pilot is wounded or killed, the intelligent aircraft will be able to carry out the combat mission itself and return to base.
A future development of domestic scientists - the flight navigation complex - will help designate the route. In particular, it will make it possible to execute a whole flight automatically. It would seem a modern autopilot also is able to find its own airfield and land. But the helicopter of the future will be able not just to fly straight. Thanks to improved intellectual characteristics, it will be able to determine the degree of the threat that occurs during flight and make a decision about ways to overcome it. For example, it will not turn into a storm front, but go round it. If it encounters a mountain along the way, the helicopter itself will evaluate its altitude and sizes and make a decision whether to climb, or, on the contrary, fly nap of the earth ((PRIZHAT'SYA K SKLADKAM MESTNOSTI)). The last variant is preferred if they open fire on the helicopter.
"There already are such programs and we already are creating similar algorithms," Aleksey Samusenko reported. - "There is nothing fantastic about it."
The task of an appreciable speed increase of such a flying apparatus is before the developers. Helicopters cannot fly quickly owing to the physical peculiarities of the creation of vertical thrust. Conventional helicopters move with a speed of 250 - 260 kilometers per hour. The maximum the are capable of is 300 kilometers per hour, but that is not advantageous because of high fuel consumption.
The future flying apparatus will be able to develop a speed of 450 - 500 kilometers per hour - two times faster than any helicopter existing now. A variant of a convertiplane is being investigated for achievement of such a result, where the blades are transformed together with the wing from a vertical position to the horizontal. This is rather not even a helicopter, but an airplane.
"In the execution of similar missions we collide with a multitude of technical and engineering problems," Aleksey Samusenko acknowledged. "Therefore, we are using a completely different engineering approach in creation of the flying apparatus. The realization of some design concepts will be paperless, without man's participation, with the outgoing quality tasked by the design documentation. It goes without saying composite materials are needed."
The new aircraft will be equipped with next-generation types of weapons. It is a matter of the so-called weapons system - when the helicopter will be able to carry out a strike while not being in an enemy's destruction zone. The capabilities to carry out combat from cover, in bad weather conditions, the ability to identify the enemy, the future flying apparatus will be able to carry out all this while remaining at a safe distance.
The use of the helicopter has expanded many fold in our days. Earlier it served mainly as fire support for the ground forces and reconnaissance. The experience of local conflicts has demonstrated that that is not enough. Therefore, the military must determine the new complex's place in defense strategy. One need understand for what high speed, systemic weapons and composite materials are needed.
At what stage is this project? The Russian helicopter people are as yet at the very beginning of the way. Right now they are struggling with the problem of high-speed flight. For which they are selecting high-speed main blade profiles, testing articles in the wind tunnel and trying to determine their aerodynamic integration. Research is being conducted on future materials. After the concept receives approval, the plans will reach the plants for realization. Practical work on the creation of the miracle helicopter will begin, most likely, as early as the present year.
Source: 19.01.11, Rossiyskaya Gazeta
Aleksandr Bezmenov
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