By Kris Osborn – President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington D.C.) The Pentagon says the intruding Chinese spy balloon was successfully destroyed by an F-22-fired AIM-9X Sidewider missile, a development which raises interesting questions about the long-term functionality, operational success and expected service life of the F-22 Raptor.
F-22
While the emergence of the Pentagon’s now already airborne Next Generation Air Dominance 6th-generation stealth fighter jet is already airborne is often thought of as a next-generation F-22 …. the F-22 itself and its upgraded air-to-air weapons are not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
The continued operational use of the F-22, which has included attacks on ISIS over Iraq in 2014, seems to have been measurably improved by a long-standing series of ongoing technology upgrades. These upgrades cover a wide range of technological areas to include stealth coating preservation and maintenance, sensors and weapons guidance, software upgrades, radar-driven threat detection, communications technology and high-speed computing. For many years now, the Air Force has been vigorously pursuing new avionics, radar, targeting sensors, weapons, glass cockpit displays and Artificial Intelligence for its F-22 stealth fighter to try to sustain air supremacy amid Russian and Chinese 5th-generation stealth fighter technical modernization.
These upgrades were designed to enable the F-22 to ID targets at longer ranges, respond more efficiently to sensor input, sustain an air-to-air combat superiority over near-peer rivals and lay down a technical foundation such that the aircraft can quickly embrace new weapons, technologies, sensors and software as they emerge.
Video Above: Air War in 2050 – Air Force Research Lab Command
These upgrades have included specific weapons improvements for the F-22s to massively expand its target envelope, air-to-air attack range and lock-on-launch precision. The upgraded F-22s are now able to track and destroy enemy targets flying behind them, hit air targets with much greater force, precision and destructive power and include new GPS jam-resistant technologies.
Actual integration of the software-enabled F-22 weapons upgrades, which included new variants of the AIM-9X and AIM-120D missiles –has been underway for many years now as part of a multi-year software upgrade called 3.2B during which the weapons improvements were prototyped, tested, demonstrated and validated.
While the specifics of exactly which variant of the AIM-9X was used to destroy the balloon are likely not available for security reasons, it may well have been the F-22s upgraded Block II AIM-9X. The new AIM-9X shoots farther and reach a much larger targeting envelope for pilots. Working with a variety of helmets and display systems, Lockheed developers have added “off-boresight” targeting ability enabling pilots to attack enemies from a wide range of new angles.
Raytheon AIM-9X weapons developers have told Warrior that the Block II variant adds a redesigned fuze and a digital ignition safety device that enhances ground handling and in-flight safety. Block II also features updated electronics that enable significant enhancements, including lock-on-after-launch capability using a new weapon datalink to support beyond visual range engagements, a Raytheon statement said. It uses an imaging infrared focal plane array go give it its “off-boresight” targeting ability. Utilizing a Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System, or a new generation of pilot sights, a pilot can control the AIM-9X missile by looking at a target.
Another part of the weapons upgrade includes engineering the F-22 to fire the AIM-120D, a beyond visual range Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM), designed for all weather day-and-night attacks; it is a “fire and forget” missile with active transmit radar guidance, Raytheon data states.
The AIM-120D is built with upgrades to previous AMRAAM missiles by increasing attack range, GPS navigation, inertial measurement units and a two-way data link, Raytheon statements explain.
Video Above: F-22 Computing, Sensing, Radar
The multi-year, multi-pronged F-22 modernization and sustainment effort has been inherently connected to increased computer automation and AI, as a mechanism to integrate otherwise disparate elements of F-22 avionics, sensors and mission systems. Common IP protocol standards, including both software and hardware, are engineered to provide a technical backbone enabling upgrades and integration of a variety of interconnected systems—to include radar warning receivers, AESA radar, LINK 16 connectivity, improved weapons, emerging sensor and targeting configurations and new transponders, able to identify friend or foe.
In concept and application, AI can lower a hardware footprint and increasingly use advanced algorithms to perform processes without requiring as much human intervention. For instance, a more integrated computer processor is better-equipped to potentially perform real-time analytics during a mission to make adjustments as maintenance and combat circumstances may require. Faster analytics, relying on newer forms of computer automation, can more quickly identify problems, attack targets, recognize threats and streamline various cockpit functions.
This has included the emergence of multi-function sensors where single systems can simultaneously perform different missions and organize incoming data. Such AI-oriented technologies can have targeting benefits for combat, threat-recognition improvements, longer-range enemy identification or weapons delivery applications.
Many of these upgrades are informing an upcoming mid-life upgrade and sustainment enterprise for the F-22 fleet. Years ago, senior Lockheed Martin weapons developers said the mid-life upgrade will not only extend the functional service life of the aircraft for several more decades, but also reduce technical risk. The mid-life work on the aircraft, slated for 2024, is primarily geared toward maintaining F-22 technological superiority while both China and Russia fast-track 5th-generation stealth aircraft.
Video Above: Air Force Research Lab Breaks Through With Networked Attacks
Exploration of AI for the F-22 aligns, in many respects, with the current “sensor fusion” technologies built into the F-35; this includes organizing and displaying information from Electro-Optical/Targeting Systems (EOTS), Distributed Aperture Systems (DAS) and other sensors onto a single screen. Relying on advanced algorithms, this system is often referred to as man-machine interfac
e, able to lower the “cognitive burden” placed on pilots, who can be freed up to focus on other priorities and decisions.
Computer-enabled AI, naturally, can greatly expedite completion of the Air Force’s long-discussed OODA-loop phenomenon, wherein pilots seek to quickly complete a decision-making cycle – Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action – faster than an enemy fighter. The concept, dating back decades to former Air Force pilot and theorist John Boyd, has long informed fighter-pilot training and combat preparation.
If pilots can complete the OODA loop more quickly than an enemy during an air-to-air combat engagement, described as “getting inside an enemy’s decision-making process,” they can destroy an enemy and prevail. Faster processing of information, empowering better pilot decisions, it naturally stands to reason, makes a big difference when it comes to the OODA loop.
This entire effort synchronized with 3.2b, which used agile software development to, among other things, upgrade F-22 weapons systems.
This progressive series of F-22 modernization enhancements feeds into a commensurate effort to update 1980s and 1990s computer technology, in some cases drawing on commercially available technical innovations. The mid-life upgrade will address much of this in an effort to ensure the pumps, valves and integrated core processors are brought up-to-date.
Video Above: Air War in 2050 – Air Force Research Lab Commander on Golden Horde
Newer F-22s are already getting advanced AESA radar, not unlike what is already on the F-35, engineered to accommodate software upgrades as they emerge. This architecture enables the aircraft radar warning receiver to broaden its threat library to identify new enemy aircraft. These upgrades involve the installation of new transponders able to quickly identify “friend or foe” aircraft more efficiently, Lockheed developers explained.
“You can see air-to-air targets coming your way and a ground target will appear as a blip on a screen – with an information tag on it based on intel telling you what it is,” a senior Lockheed Martin weapons developer told Warriors several years ago
Interoperability with the F-35 and 4th-gen aircraft are also being greatly improved by the addition of more LINK 16 data-link technology; the F-22 increasingly able to wirelessly transmit targeting, mapping and other sensor information to other aircraft without needing to rely upon potentially “hackable” voice transmissions, Lockheed developers explained.
A hardware portion of the F-22 upgrades, called a “tactical mandate,” has also involves engineering new antennas specifically designed to preserve its stealth configuration
Air Force is already using wirelessly-enabled automation to facilitate real-time analytics for conditioned based maintenance on board F-16s. Automated CBM can help identify potential points of failure while an aircraft is in-mission and therefore increase safety and reliability while also lower costs and streamlining maintenance. AI is one of the emerging ways this can increasingly be accomplished. At the same time, AI is also fundamental to rapid targeting, navigation and other aircraft functions – it allows the aircraft to keep pace with rapid technology change and add new algorithms or computer processing tech as it becomes available.
Upgrading computer tech is something the Air Force is pursuing across the fleet, recognizing its significance to future combat; for instance, the service is progressing with an ongoing effort to equip the F-15 with the fastest jet-computer processor in the world, called the Advanced Display Core Processor, or ADCPII. Boeing developers tell Warrior Maven the system is capable of processing 87 billion instructions per second of computing throughput.
The F-22 will also continue to upgrade its collision avoidance technology which is somewhat different than the F-16s ground collision avoidance system which can automatically re-route an aircraft headed for collision. The F-22 system simply keeps the aircraft above a certain altitude in the event that a pilot is incapacitated. Also, auto-navigation software could be used to help an F-22 maneuver, re-position during an air-to-air engagement or land in challenged circumstances. A technology of this kind, called Delta Flight Path, is already operational on the F-35; the software helps guide the aircraft independently in circumstances where that might be necessary.
Autonomous, or semi-autonomous, flight is a fast-evolving technology across the US military services which increasingly see AI as a key wave to future warfare; the Air Force has already experimented with unmanned F-16s and there is a lot of work going more broadly in this area. More than five years ago, former Navy Secretary Ray Mabus once said the service’s F-35C will likely be the last “manned” fighter. More recently, the Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s Operational Mandates have been clear that the NGAD 6th-generation aircraft will likely control as many as 5 drones and operate as a “family of systems.”
Thus far, AI-enabled computer programs are able to complete procedures much more quickly than efficiently, in many instances, than a human can. At the same time, there is still not as of yet a suitable substitute for the kind of problem-solving and dynamic decision-making ability provided by human cognition, scientists explain. For this reason, future explorations place a premium on machine-learning and autonomy as well as man-machine interface wherein algorithms are advanced to support a human functioning in the role of command and control.
For instance, Air Force former Chief Scientist Dr. Gregory Zacharias often talked about these questions over the course of several interviews with Warrior Maven in recent years. As an expert specialist in the area of autonomy, he talked about a fast-approaching day wherein pilots will be able to control nearby drone “wing-men” from the cockpit of an F-35 or F-22. Such a technology, naturally, could enable forward operating drones to conduct reconnaissance missions, test enemy air defenses and even fire weapons – all while a pilot remains at a safer standoff distance acting in the role of command and control.
The Air Force has also made progress in recent years working with Lockheed to sustain and renew the stealth coating material on the F-22. Part of this has included hardware upgrades, called a “tactical mandate,” has also involves engineering new antennas specifically designed to preserve its stealth configuration
As far back as 2017, the Air Force contracted Lockheed Martin to perform essential maintenance to the F-22’s low-observable stealth coating. Lockheed Martin completed the first F-22 Raptor at the company’s Inlet Coating Repair Speedline, a company statement at the time said.
“Periodic maintenance is required to maintain the special exterior coatings that contribute to the 5th Generation Raptor’s Very Low Observable radar cross-section,” a Lockheed statement at the time said.
While many details of its particular composition are, naturally, not available for security reasons, the coating contains special Radar Absorbing Materials designed to “keep radio waves from returning to the receiver.” This prevents enemy
radar from receiving any kind of “rendering” of the aircraft, according to a 2015 essay called the “Feasibility Study of a Stealth Missile for Military Application,” from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
“RAM creates electromagnetic interference that allow for the absorption of many frequencies of electromagnetic waves which are transmitted by radar,” the essay writes (Javan A. Roussel).
F-22 Sensors
Newer F-22s have a technology called Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR, which uses electromagnetic signals or “pings” to deliver a picture or rendering of the terrain below, allowing better target identification.
The SAR technology sends a ping to the ground and then analyzes the return signal to calculate the contours, distance and characteristics of the ground below.
The F-22 is also known for its “super cruise” technology which enables the fighter to reach speeds of Mach 1.5 without needing to turn on its after burners. This enables the fighter to travel faster and farther on less fuel, a scenario which expands its time for combat missions.
Video Above: Colonel Michael Stefanovic, Director of the Strategic Studies Institute for the Air Force sits down for an exclusive interview with Kris Osborn
The fighter jet fires a 20mm cannon and has the ability to carry and fire all the air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons including precision-guided ground bombs, such Joint Direct Attack Munitions called the GBU 32 and GBU 39.
It also uses what’s called a radar-warning receiver – a technology with an updateable database called “mission data files” designed to recognize a wide-range of enemy fighters, much like the F-35.
Made by Lockheed Martin and Boeing, the F-22 uses two Pratt & Whitney F119-PW-100 turbofan engines with afterburners and two-dimensional thrust vectoring nozzles, an Air Force statement said. It is 16-feet tall, 62-feet long and weighs 43,340 pounds. Its maximum take-off weight is 83,500.
The aircraft was first introduced in December of 2005; the F-22 Raptor fighter jet delivered some of the first strikes in the U.S.-led attacks on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, when aerial bombing began in 2014, service officials told Warrior.
After delivering some of the first strikes in the U.S. Coalition-led military action against ISIS, the F-22 began to shift its focus from an air-dominance mission to one more focused on supporting attacks on the ground.
For the long term, given that the Air Force plans to fly the F-22 well into the 2060s, these weapons upgrades are engineered to build the technical foundation needed to help integrate a new generation of air-to-air missiles as they emerge in coming years.
Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
