下一代海軍無人戰斗機

????今年夏天，美國海軍與私人公司諾斯羅普格魯曼公司攜手推出了X－47B無人戰斗機，并成功在航母甲板上進行了起降試驗，引起舉世震動。這款無人機將于明年結束試飛階段。隨著基礎技術已經到位，為美國海軍打造能部署在航母艦隊上的無人戰斗機部隊的競爭已經正式開始。

????諾斯羅普格魯曼公司顯然會憑借X-47B的某些型號暫時領先，但是其它競爭者也已經加入了這場競賽。比如波音公司（Boeing ）就計劃對現有一款無人機的概念機進行升級。通用原子公司（General Atomics，該公司生產的“收割者”和“捕食者”無人機已經部署在阿富汗、巴基斯坦、也門等地）也計劃推出自己的設計。洛克希德馬丁公司（AUVSILockheed Martin）也在今年的AUVSI展會上向觀眾展示了自家無人機的概念機的形象（上圖）。美國海軍也將對自動飛行技術進行大量研究（并且拋出一筆利潤豐厚的生產合同作為激勵）。因此，能夠在航母上部署的無人偵察機和戰斗機項目未來無疑是一個值得繼續關注的領域。

The next generation of Navy combat drones

????The Navy made a media splash this summer when, alongside private-sector partner Northrop Grumman, it launched and recovered the first autonomous combat jet from the deck of an aircraft carrier. But the X-47B, as the experimental aircraft is known, will conclude test flights sometime next year. Now, with the baseline technology in place, the real competition to build the Navy's carrier- and combat-capable UAS fleet of the future gets underway in earnest.

????Though Northrop Grumman will remain in that race with some variant of the X-47B, other contenders are jumping into the competition. Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) plans to update one of its concept UAS. General Atomics (maker of the Reaper and Predator UAS currently deployed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere) plans to put forward a design, and at AUVSILockheed Martin (LMT, Fortune 500) gave attendees their most detailed look yet at its emerging concept UAS (pictured above). The Navy is about to kick off a flurry of research into autonomous flight capability (with a lucrative production contract as incentive), making the upcoming Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program a space to keep an eye on.