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Chinese researchers say they have developed AI to predict course of hypersonic missiles
- Scientists from the Air Force Early Warning Academy say the technology can foresee the course of glide weapons travelling at more than five times the speed of sound
- The world’s leading powers are racing to develop hypersonic weapons and it is thought that existing technology will not be able to stop them
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Chinese military researchers say they have developed an artificial intelligence technology that can estimate the the course of a hypersonic glide missile as it homes in on a target at more than five times the speed of sound.
An air defence system powered by AI can estimate the incoming weapon’s potential kill trajectory and initiate a counter response with a three-minute lead time, according to the researchers.
The average missile stays within a target zone of 8km (5 miles), which is quite narrow for a weapon that can cover the distance in as few as 2 seconds.
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“The world’s military powers are currently engaging in a fierce arms race around the development of hypersonic glide vehicles, bringing new and severe challenges to air and space safety,” said Zhang Junbiao, a computer scientist from the early warning intelligence department of the Air Force Early Warning Academy in Wuhan.
“Trajectory prediction is of great significance to combat intent assessment and aerospace defence interception,” Zhang and his colleagues wrote in a paper published in the Journal of Astronautics, a peer-reviewed publication run by the Chinese Society of Astronautics ,on April 30.
A hypersonic glide weapon launches an attack from space and unlike a conventional ballistic missile can travel in and out of the atmosphere like a stone skipping over water and bank to the left or right – making it harder to track and intercept.
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