How AI Could Revolutionize Modern Missiles

Aerial warfare has evolved rapidly throughout the decades. From the days of World War Two when design philosophies catered to dogfighting to the modern battlespace where a massive emphasis is placed on sensors and munitions. However, some nations are lagging behind, the glaring gap is especially noticeable in the field of missiles, however, we will look further into “Fox-2’s” or, Infrared Imaging seeker missiles.

AIM-9 “Sidewinder” Family.

AIM-9 “Sidewinder” Family.

At the moment, there are a handful of IR Guidance based air to air missiles in service, however, the two main types in service are the American AIM-9 and the Russian/Soviet R-73. The AIM-9 is a far older design, originating in the 1950s, with its first combat debut in the 1958 Taiwan strait crisis. This however would be an inaccurate representation of the AIM-9 however. Throughout the years, the AIM-9 has gone through numerous upgrades, ranging from its kinematic/aerodynamic performance to its onboard systems, such as its seeker and by extension, its countermeasure resistance to name a few things. The most modern variants of the AIM-9 in service at the moment are the AIM-9L/M and the AIM-9X. The latter is very different from the rest of the AIM-9 family, it is also the one that will be discussed in more detail here.

The R-73, while being a relatively newer design, suffers from many shortfalls. However, due to the tight lipped nature of the Soviet bloc countries/Russia, we don’t have as much information as we do on the AIM-9 family, however, we do have enough information on the critical components. i.e seeker to be able to make a reasonable judgement.

Where does AI come into play?

The most modern Infrared Guided missiles use a type of seeker that is referred to as an Imaging Infrared (IIR) Seeker, this kind of seeker is different in the sense that it it has some form of image recognition capabilities. Now, we don’t know what these capabilities are exactly, however, we can safely assume that these missiles are able to distinguish between shapes and patterns to be able to increase their pK(probability of Kill).

As of right now, all new Western missiles use IIR seekers, however, outside of the west, there are a handful of other nations with comparable missiles,Taiwan, China, South Africa and Israel.

These missiles are actually able to produce an image, much like a camera like the one in your smartphone, this requires onboard systems to process the images as there is a lot more information being fed to the missiles mission computers.

At the moment, these missiles don’t have the capability to be able to process the amount of information required to be able to take full advantage of their seeker, in the future we could see them being able to rely on AI and deep learning to really improve their effectiveness, here is how.

Due to the impressive clarity of these seekers, we could potentially have the missile be able to completely be able to distinguish between what is a target and what is a countermeasure, not to say we do not already have this, however, to increase resistance to countermeasures, we could use some form of deep learning to be able to train the missile using a threat library, providing information to the missile to enable it to accurately distinguish between a real target and a countermeasure.

One other application of AI could be to enable the missile to determine a weak spot or a point on the aircraft where a hit would be lethal, thus, increasing its pK, a similar application of this kind of technology was seen in the AGM-158C LRASM, which applied this kind of a technique in its terminal stage guidance to increase the likelihood of a lethal hit. You can read more about the naval application of this here.

An AIM-9B Proximity sensor.

An AIM-9B Proximity sensor.

The reason why i do state that having the missile determine a weak spot on the aircraft is important is due to the fact that most modern missiles make use of what is called a proximity fuze. Contrary to popular belief, a missile doesn’t actually need to hit the target to kill it, it only needs to get close enough. Once it is close enough, it will explode to be able to inflict damage to the target, releasing its warhead. While this is a very effective method, there are many examples of aircraft surviving these kinds of hits. Having a missile determine what the weakest point on an aircraft is would infinitely increase its chances of a successful kill. On modern missiles, kinematics is not as big of a deal as these are arguably some of the most maneuverable pieces of equipment available to militaries. For example, the South African A-Darter is able to pull up to 100 G’s(100x the force of Gravity) to be able to effectively be able to match and outmaneuver whatever the target is.

This insane maneuverability paired with a very powerful seeker and image processing equipment is a highly lethal combination, allowing for the missile to actively be able to evade countermeasures such as flares or dazzlers and be able to effectively maintain a lock on a target, from any angle, as opposed to legacy rear aspect missiles which would only really be able to get a lock onto the engine of an aircraft.