The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sees high value in swarms of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) and manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T), but it has some way to go before broadly fielding such capabilities.
The PLA sees a number of areas where swarms of UAVs can be effective, according to a report from the China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) that surveyed a range of Chinese academic papers.
“Though neither is fully realised, the PLA’s operational thought surrounding UAV swarm tactics and applications is likely more mature and more likely to be deployed in a near-term conflict than MUM-T techniques,” states the CASI report.
“This may be due to an extensive research and development ecosystem that is steadily developing more mature swarm technologies, as well as PLA observations about the heavy use of small UAVs in the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as more tactically in Syria and Israel.”
Chinese military thinkers see a range of missions for UAV swarms such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), extending the range of computer networks, and pushing sensors deep into the enemy’s weapons engagement zone.
The PLA’s adoption of swarm technology is, however, relatively slow due to technical challenges in autonomy and command-and-control, and organisational hurdles like underdeveloped doctrine and limited operator training.
MUM-T gets great emphasis in Chinese defence thinking.
In the Chinese context, MUM-T would see UAVs operating close to the enemy providing targeting data to manned assets operating at a safe distance, or UAVs conducting initial strikes, allowing follow-on action by manned assets. Another concept envisages unmanned assets carrying out a range of missions – such as decoy, ISR, and strike – while manned assets serve as a command-and-control nodes.
One specific mission envisaged for MUM-T is providing early detection of US stealth aircraft, with data transmitted back to manned or ground systems.
MUM-T adoption, however, is slow due to limited operational integration, technical immaturity, and a lack of clear doctrinal guidance within the PLA.
The report observes that China has a vibrant UAV industry that throws up a broad range of products and possible capabilities, and yet the PLA’s pace of adoption is far from clear.
“China’s defence industry has developed numerous prototypes and demonstrators for swarm and MUM-T technologies, including some that make extensive use of artificial intelligence,” says the report.
“There is no public evidence, however, that any of these prototypes or demonstrators have reached full operational status with line units in the PLA.”
