Chinese UAVs to use Genetic Algorithms to hunt Submarines

cir

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12:48 28 February 2012

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

Chinese navy researchers have revealed how they plan to hunt submarines using ship-launched uncrewed air vehicles (UAVs).

The plan, developed by the naval academy in Dalian, China, is to choose the best hunting pattern for a drone using the power of the genetic algorithm - a search engine that evolves an optimum solution by discarding feeble offspring and breeding the best to make ever stronger ones.

The route evolved would make the best use of fuel, cater for air and sea threats and work with dropped sonar buoys. Presumably this could come in handy in some future international dispute over Taiwan. But why tell your adversary - who can now evolve counter measures?

You'd imagine that how a military hunts submarines might be a secret. In WWII, for instance, the airborne hunt for submarines with positional info gleaned from Bletchley Park's Enigma decrypts was pivotal in winning the battle of the Atlantic. But we learned about that much later. Bletchley was famously Churchill's goose that "laid the golden eggs but never cackled".

Why the department of "underwater weaponry and chemical defence" at the academy has revealed its cunning UAV plan - and published it in the journal Advanced Materials Research - is somewhat baffling.

It's not the first time this has happened. In 2010 Chinese researchers published a treatise on how to hack and trip large chunks of the US electricity grid. This led (after much initial disbelieving spluttering) to much angry rhetoric from aggrieved US commentators, not least the Department of Homeland Security.

Perhaps the frenetic, breakneck pace of China's scientific publishing machine is outstripping the nation's ability to work out what it should and should not publish? :rofl:

One Per Cent: Genetic algorithms let Chinese drones hunt submarines
 

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Mar 1, 2012 2:00 AM

Chinese Drones Will Evolve New Sub Hunting Methods on the Fly



China's new fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's) could reportedly find use as an autonomous, ship-launched defense against submarines. And, according to a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials Research, the UAV's will use genetic algorithms to spot the subs faster.

A genetic algorithm is one that works much like natural evolution. It narrows down search results, weeding out the weaker, off-topic responses, and recombining the "stronger" returned values into a better hybridized result. In the case of the Chinese UAV's, this result is a more efficient search pattern. And, by taking factors such as fuel economy, air and sea-based threats, and information from deployed sonar buoys, the UAV's can rapidly home in on enemy subs.

Given the US's renewed interest in the Pacific theater as well as renewed tensions with Taiwan, it does seem a bit odd that the PRC is letting everyone see its cards, so to speak. Then again, China also published a paper on how to hack US cyber-structures and its electricity grid back in 2010, then proceeded to do so with the American intelligence community apparently powerless to stop it. [New Scientist via PopSci]
 

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Super smart Chinese flying drones can plot their own attack patterns on the fly

Chinese researchers publish documents detailing their country's plans to hunt down enemy submarines

by Mariella Moon | Last updated 7:21PM EST on March 1, 2012

The Chinese government is planning to build unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) so advanced, they will be able to plot their own attack patterns while in the air. To hunt down enemy submarines, the UAVs or drones will use genetic algorithm, an artificial intelligence technology modeled after the process of natural selection. Whenever a drone needs to do something, it will first come up with a number of suggestions, and then jettison the weakest ideas. Finally, it will merge the better ones together to create the best possible course of action.

According to the documents published by the Chinese researchers, the algorithm takes into account potential threats, the geography of the location, and the amount of fuel needed to perform a particular action. The flying drones will detect submarines underwater by dropping sonar bouys into the ocean, and analyzing the signals they send back.

While the high-tech drone design is certainly astounding, one may wonder why on earth the researchers would publish documents that detail their government's military plans, especially since China is extra secretive. Nobody knows if the documents were mistakenly published, but we now know the Chinese government has a mighty impressive technology in the works.

Super smart Chinese flying drones can plot their own attack patterns on the fly | Tecca
 

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