According to foreign media reports, the UK Ministry of Defense recently announced the launch of the second phase of its autonomous collaboration platform plan, aimed at developing unmanned wingmen that can operate in conjunction with manned fighter jets. The project will start bidding in 2026, with an estimated contract amount of £ 24 million (approximately $32.09 million), with the goal of forming initial operational capabilities by 2030. Britain has long had a precedent in the exploration of unmanned wingman aircraft. In 2021, the UK Air Force Rapid Capability Office launched the "Mosquito" project, planning to develop low-cost drone prototypes for coordinated combat with the Typhoon, F-35B, and the next generation of fighter jets under development. The project budget is £ 30 million. However, the project was suspended in 2022 and even failed to complete the prototype's maiden flight. The official explanation for this is that the project cost exceeded expectations and the technical path needs to be adjusted. In June of this year, the UK government released the Strategic Defense Assessment Report, which proposed that unmanned combat systems should be an important means for the UK to address current security threats. The UK Ministry of Defence further pointed out that the scale of active fighter jets in the Air Force has dropped to a historical low, and there is an urgent need to fill the combat power gap through the development of unmanned systems. This practical need is in line with the report's guidance on accelerating the development of unmanned equipment, providing policy basis and practical motivation for the restart of unmanned wingman projects. The UK Ministry of Defence has put forward four core capability requirements for the development of unmanned wingers. One is electronic warfare capability. The system needs to have anti-interference capabilities at every stage from combat execution to data transmission, and can also interfere with the opponent's radar and communication systems to weaken their air defense capabilities. The second is the ability to perform high-risk tasks. The system needs to have precise strike capability and can carry modular payloads to perform reconnaissance, electronic attack, or suicide attack missions. The third is the ability to perform graded operations from remote control to full autonomy. The system should maintain decision stability in complex adversarial environments, and even in the event of signal interruption in the global satellite navigation system, it can still coordinate navigation and target recognition through multiple sensors. The fourth is low detectability. The system needs to have dual stealth characteristics of radar and infrared, with a radar reflection area of less than 0.01 square meters. In addition, the UK Ministry of Defence emphasized that the system will be integrated into the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier in the future, and must have a corrosion-resistant design to adapt to the sea salt spray environment on the carrier deck. At present, the UK Ministry of Defence has initiated a rapid procurement process and plans to accelerate project progress through a "research and development while testing" model after the tender in 2026. If everything goes smoothly, the first batch of validation aircraft will be carried by the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier for sea testing in 2028. However, the project still faces many challenges during its progress. On the one hand, technological breakthroughs are difficult. The stability of autonomous decision-making systems is still a prominent weakness. According to the assessment of the UK Defense Technology Laboratory, the success rate of existing artificial intelligence algorithms in strong electromagnetic interference environments is only 65%, which is difficult to meet the requirements of complex adversarial scenarios. On the other hand, there is a high risk of cost overruns. Previously, the "Mosquito" project was forced to be suspended due to exceeding the budget. The budget for this project is only 24 million pounds, and it needs to cover the research and development of core capabilities in multiple fields such as electronic warfare, autonomous decision-making, and stealth design. The complexity of the task is increasing compared to the "Mosquito" project. There is widespread concern in the industry that under the dual pressure of budget reduction and increased technological demand, existing investments may not be able to support the full implementation of capabilities, and the risk of cost overruns or forced functional shrinkage has significantly increased. (New Society)