China China’s ‘Mind-Boggling’ Claims – New AI System Can Design Hypersonic Weapons By Itself Without Human Intervention

xizhimen

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China’s ‘Mind-Boggling’ Claims – New AI System Can Design Hypersonic Weapons By Itself Without Human Intervention​


ByEurAsian Times Desk

March 25, 2022

Although the US remains the leader in the anti-submarine warfare and artificial intelligence domain, China’s efforts to harness “quality data” for military use have put Beijing way ahead of the Pentagon, a former admiral of the US Navy said.

A new paper published in a journal run by China’s aerospace defense industry claims that Beijing has made significant progress in building an AI (artificial intelligence) system that can design new hypersonic weapons autonomously.

“It was frustrating for all of us working with large excel spreadsheets, in deciding which programs to advance and which to curb”, said Admiral Bill Moran (retired), a former Vice Chief of US Naval Operations, while speaking at a Navy League webinar on artificial intelligence in November 2021.

On March 16, a team of researchers led by Professor Le Jialing with China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre in Mianyang, Sichuan, published their findings in the Journal of Propulsion Technology.

Le has been an advisor to the Chinese military on hypersonic weapon technology for more than three decades, according to the publicly available information.
As hypersonic research in China advances to Mach 8 – eight times the speed of sound – and above, the volume of experimental data to be processed and analyzed has also been increasing significantly, researchers say.

In such a situation, the human brain can no longer keep up with the rapid pace of hypersonic technology development according to Le and his team.
Countries across the world are racing to achieve hypersonic flight capability and an essential part of this race are simulation experiments that virtually create extreme hypersonic flight conditions in ‘wind tunnels’.

Wind-China-e1638932246354.jpg

File Image: China’s Hypersonic Wind unnel

How AI Systems Identify ‘Shock Waves’

When a missile or an aerial object approaches speeds exceeding that of sound, it experiences something called a ‘shock wave’, which is basically a disturbance in the air around the vehicle that can cause extremely violent changes in pressure over its surface.

So, the scientists use wind tunnels to basically blow wind at high speeds over their vehicle designs to see if their designs can perform desirably under such conditions.

China-hypersonic-aircraft-e1639104521559.jpg

Image of what is believed to be a Chinese hypersonic aircraft. (CCTV screenshot)

Now, there are different types of shock waves that can have differing impacts on the vehicle and it is critical to distinctly identify these shock wave types for designing hypersonic vehicles.

Each wind tunnel experiment can produce about tens and thousands of simulated images of atmospheric disturbances around the vehicle and these photos have to be studied manually by experienced researchers, often pixel by pixel, to identify which disturbance is a shock wave or what type of shock wave it is.

An image of a hypersonic wind tunnel test contains a large amount of turbulence, and it can take human experts “an enormous amount of time and energy to label the critical shock wave structures pixel by pixel”, said Le and colleagues in the paper.

Li’s team claims to have built an AI machine that could identify most of the shock waves occurring in wind tunnel tests without even being instructed on what to look for.

Usually, the AI systems need to be taught by humans in a typical training session which would involve the researchers carefully outlining a shock wave by labeling it with information so that the AI can then go on to identify them itself.

The AI will make mistakes initially so it has to be corrected repeatedly and that is how it will learn to correctly identify a particular shock wave. However, Li claims that his AI system needed no training at all!

The researchers used a technique called ‘unsupervised segmentation’ based on a mathematical theory on graphics that can form a relationship between seemingly unrelated objects.
The machine would label what it believed was a shock wave by examining the location, brightness, and color of each pixel. The AI would use these initial results as training material to continuously improve its performance in recognizing shock waves until it could detect the shock wave patterns.

DF-17.jpg

China’s DF-17 hypersonic missiles. (Image: China Military Online)

Perfect Match

According to the researchers, the shock waves identified by their AI were an 85 percent match to those marked by human experts.

Furthermore, the AI system’s overall accuracy was nearly 4 times that of traditional computer software and it was based on a low-cost, 3-year-old graphic card that took about 9 seconds to process an image.

If true, such a remarkable feat can give China an edge not only in designing hypersonic vehicles but also in military applications such as autonomous target detection and recognition for their weapons based on deep learning and deep neural networks.

“Our future cruise missiles will have a very high level of AI and autonomy,” such that commanders will be able “to control them in a real-time manner, or to use a fire-and-forget mode, or even to add more tasks to in-flight missiles,” a senior Chinese missile designer said in 2016.

Last year, PLA missile scientists from Rocket Force Engineering University had said that the accuracy of hypersonic weapons could be improved by more than 10 times if complete control is given to the machine.

They had published a paper detailing how AI can write the weapon’s software “on the fly”, while it moves at hypervelocity, through a unique flight control algorithm.

 

Mehmed Ali

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Your posts consist nothing but childish sensationalism and childish bragging, haven't you noticed that not many people actually pay attention to your drivel? Bu the in some personal departments Chinese come up really short, can you right to politburo to extend your "shortcomings " that would really be mind-boggling
 

Amardeep Mishra

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China’s ‘Mind-Boggling’ Claims – New AI System Can Design Hypersonic Weapons By Itself Without Human Intervention​


ByEurAsian Times Desk

March 25, 2022

Although the US remains the leader in the anti-submarine warfare and artificial intelligence domain, China’s efforts to harness “quality data” for military use have put Beijing way ahead of the Pentagon, a former admiral of the US Navy said.

A new paper published in a journal run by China’s aerospace defense industry claims that Beijing has made significant progress in building an AI (artificial intelligence) system that can design new hypersonic weapons autonomously.

“It was frustrating for all of us working with large excel spreadsheets, in deciding which programs to advance and which to curb”, said Admiral Bill Moran (retired), a former Vice Chief of US Naval Operations, while speaking at a Navy League webinar on artificial intelligence in November 2021.

On March 16, a team of researchers led by Professor Le Jialing with China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre in Mianyang, Sichuan, published their findings in the Journal of Propulsion Technology.

Le has been an advisor to the Chinese military on hypersonic weapon technology for more than three decades, according to the publicly available information.
As hypersonic research in China advances to Mach 8 – eight times the speed of sound – and above, the volume of experimental data to be processed and analyzed has also been increasing significantly, researchers say.

In such a situation, the human brain can no longer keep up with the rapid pace of hypersonic technology development according to Le and his team.
Countries across the world are racing to achieve hypersonic flight capability and an essential part of this race are simulation experiments that virtually create extreme hypersonic flight conditions in ‘wind tunnels’.

View attachment 41573
File Image: China’s Hypersonic Wind unnel

How AI Systems Identify ‘Shock Waves’

When a missile or an aerial object approaches speeds exceeding that of sound, it experiences something called a ‘shock wave’, which is basically a disturbance in the air around the vehicle that can cause extremely violent changes in pressure over its surface.

So, the scientists use wind tunnels to basically blow wind at high speeds over their vehicle designs to see if their designs can perform desirably under such conditions.

View attachment 41574
Image of what is believed to be a Chinese hypersonic aircraft. (CCTV screenshot)

Now, there are different types of shock waves that can have differing impacts on the vehicle and it is critical to distinctly identify these shock wave types for designing hypersonic vehicles.

Each wind tunnel experiment can produce about tens and thousands of simulated images of atmospheric disturbances around the vehicle and these photos have to be studied manually by experienced researchers, often pixel by pixel, to identify which disturbance is a shock wave or what type of shock wave it is.

An image of a hypersonic wind tunnel test contains a large amount of turbulence, and it can take human experts “an enormous amount of time and energy to label the critical shock wave structures pixel by pixel”, said Le and colleagues in the paper.

Li’s team claims to have built an AI machine that could identify most of the shock waves occurring in wind tunnel tests without even being instructed on what to look for.

Usually, the AI systems need to be taught by humans in a typical training session which would involve the researchers carefully outlining a shock wave by labeling it with information so that the AI can then go on to identify them itself.

The AI will make mistakes initially so it has to be corrected repeatedly and that is how it will learn to correctly identify a particular shock wave. However, Li claims that his AI system needed no training at all!

The researchers used a technique called ‘unsupervised segmentation’ based on a mathematical theory on graphics that can form a relationship between seemingly unrelated objects.
The machine would label what it believed was a shock wave by examining the location, brightness, and color of each pixel. The AI would use these initial results as training material to continuously improve its performance in recognizing shock waves until it could detect the shock wave patterns.

View attachment 41575
China’s DF-17 hypersonic missiles. (Image: China Military Online)

Perfect Match

According to the researchers, the shock waves identified by their AI were an 85 percent match to those marked by human experts.

Furthermore, the AI system’s overall accuracy was nearly 4 times that of traditional computer software and it was based on a low-cost, 3-year-old graphic card that took about 9 seconds to process an image.

If true, such a remarkable feat can give China an edge not only in designing hypersonic vehicles but also in military applications such as autonomous target detection and recognition for their weapons based on deep learning and deep neural networks.

“Our future cruise missiles will have a very high level of AI and autonomy,” such that commanders will be able “to control them in a real-time manner, or to use a fire-and-forget mode, or even to add more tasks to in-flight missiles,” a senior Chinese missile designer said in 2016.

Last year, PLA missile scientists from Rocket Force Engineering University had said that the accuracy of hypersonic weapons could be improved by more than 10 times if complete control is given to the machine.

They had published a paper detailing how AI can write the weapon’s software “on the fly”, while it moves at hypervelocity, through a unique flight control algorithm.

Hi @beijingwalker
I am a Ph.D. in flight dynamics and control and deeply involved in AI-based controls for autonomous vehicles. I feel that the AI they are talking about could automate a task that would otherwise take much more time by human experts. It can optimise the design of the glide vehicle etc. However, the real challenges are revealed in actual flights. It is during actual flight that the mathematical model of your hypersonic weapon starts deviating a lot from the actual physics. In addition, statements like these are quite immature and certainly doesnt come from someone actually working on these systems- "Last year, PLA missile scientists from Rocket Force Engineering University had said that the accuracy of hypersonic weapons could be improved by more than 10 times if complete control is given to the machine.".

The AI has its own challenge of physically controlling a hypersonic weapon. It sounds good on paper or maybe in theory. But the fact of the matter is, a truly online adaptive AI would have huge trouble controlling a hypersonic weapon as it would require large gains (learning rate) to quickly bring the state error (cross track error or any other tracking error) to 0. Now this is potentially destabilizing in itself. You may ask why? Well, the reason is, higher learning rate in purely adaptive AI leads to oscillations in the face of abrupt changes in plant dynamics, error buildup etc. And this oscillation is further exacerbated if there is substantial sensor noise and external disturbances are present in the system.
@Nilgiri @T-123456 , @Joe Shearer
 

xizhimen

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They practice hitting a mock up US aircraft carrier on a rail in the middle of Xinjiang desert from thousands of miles away

693tjaljagy71.jpg
 

xizhimen

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Your posts consist nothing but childish sensationalism and childish bragging, haven't you noticed that not many people actually pay attention to your drivel? Bu the in some personal departments Chinese come up really short, can you right to politburo to extend your "shortcomings " that would really be mind-boggling
Please don't bother to comment if you are not interested, these posts are not for everyone, since no other active Chinese members here in this forum, these posts are only for a few who might be interested about China, if you think I m bragging, we can use facts and figures to have rational discussion, i have no interest in exchanging name calling here.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Mehmed Ali

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Please don't bother to comment if you are not interested, these posts are not for everyone, since no other active Chinese members here in this forum, these posts are only for a few who might be interested about China, if you think I m bragging, we can use facts and figures to have rational discussion, i have no interest in exchanging name calling here.
If you read what you just have written, you will see that is contradicto in objecto. For sake of being factual the place you mentioned is called Eastern Turkestan
 
Last edited:

Nilgiri

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Hi @beijingwalker
I am a Ph.D. in flight dynamics and control and deeply involved in AI-based controls for autonomous vehicles. I feel that the AI they are talking about could automate a task that would otherwise take much more time by human experts. It can optimise the design of the glide vehicle etc. However, the real challenges are revealed in actual flights. It is during actual flight that the mathematical model of your hypersonic weapon starts deviating a lot from the actual physics. In addition, statements like these are quite immature and certainly doesnt come from someone actually working on these systems- "Last year, PLA missile scientists from Rocket Force Engineering University had said that the accuracy of hypersonic weapons could be improved by more than 10 times if complete control is given to the machine.".

The AI has its own challenge of physically controlling a hypersonic weapon. It sounds good on paper or maybe in theory. But the fact of the matter is, a truly online adaptive AI would have huge trouble controlling a hypersonic weapon as it would require large gains (learning rate) to quickly bring the state error (cross track error or any other tracking error) to 0. Now this is potentially destabilizing in itself. You may ask why? Well, the reason is, higher learning rate in purely adaptive AI leads to oscillations in the face of abrupt changes in plant dynamics, error buildup etc. And this oscillation is further exacerbated if there is substantial sensor noise and external disturbances are present in the system.
@Nilgiri @T-123456 , @Joe Shearer

(Again the tags didnt work I think since you are new member etc..... I had to look up your replies to find this one....)

Eurasian times is a known fluff clickbait paper (which appeals to clickbait merchants/trolls especially).... and often takes snippets/quotes out of whatever context they were found in.

No need to take it seriously.... the people that write the articles understand next to nothing about the matters at hand....and people spreading them around understand even less.
 

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