Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) has revealed new conceptual collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) designs, highlighting how they will cooperate with manned platforms.
The company’s main CCA design is depicted as a 1:10-scale model at the Japan Aerospace event in Tokyo.
The single-engined, unmanned combat aircraft resembles the Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, with twin tails and narrow intakes.
MHI is also showing a mock-up of a platform designated ARMDC-20X, which features an electro-optical sensor beneath its fuselage and is intended for reconnaissance.
Speaking with FlightGlobal, Takahiro Katoji, who heads MHI’s unmanned aerial systems department, says that the CCA is designed to collaborate with manned combat aircraft and perform multiple missions. The ARMDC-20X is a single-use, “attritibe” platform.
Katoji stresses that both the CCA and ARMDC-20X are conceptual. The CCA draws on MHI’s experience building fighter aircraft, and the ARMDC-20X from its knowledge of producing missiles.
The company is already working on what is arguably the most important element of a prospective CCA: an artificial intelligence (AI) pilot system.
In a company video, MHI discloses work in which AI pilots controlled small unmanned air vehicles in a simulated engagement.
Katoji says that MHI continues to work on AI that can operate combat aircraft, with plans to conduct a flight test involving an updated version of its AI pilot in 2025.
MHI also produced a video depicting its prospective CCA working with a “next-generation crewed fighter” that resembles the Global Air Combat Programme (GCAP) concept that Japan will develop in conjunction with Italy and the UK. MHI is Japan’s main industrial partner for GCAP.
The CCA is shown detecting an enemy fighter that is depicted as a Chinese Chengdu J-20. The CCA notifies the manned fighter via a datalink. The pilot of the manned aircraft then directs the CCA to destroy the J-20 with an air-to-air missile launched from an internal weapons bay.
The video says that the CCA features an open software architecture, allowing its AI to be easily updated. Two separate CCAs are depicted, one for combat operations and one for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). The ISR CCA is depicted with a broader wingspan, which would help improve endurance.
MHI also addresses the issue of cost and quantity, with a slide highlighting that know-how from Japan’s automotive industry will allow the mass production of attritible systems at a low price point.
Japanese defence planners have long held the view that the country’s next fighter will operate with CCAs. The incorporation of CCAs was a key element in Japan’s pre-GCAP F-X programme to replace the Mitsubishi F-2 fighter.
