Current status and future prospects of manned/unmanned teaming networking issues

The U.S. military continuously innovates its combat theories, proposing new styles of warfare such as multi-domain joint operations and mosaic operations. The form of warfare is shifting from network-centric warfare towards intelligent warfare. Intelligent warfare emphasises decentralised forces and intelligent coordination, with a typical example being manned/unmanned teaming systems. This article first reviews the development history and trends of manned/unmanned teaming systems in the U.S. military. It then elaborates on the new challenges in intelligent networking posed by manned/unmanned teaming operations at the levels of networks, links, and nodes. Finally, based on these challenges, it proposes a limited centralised manned/unmanned intelligent command architecture, providing insights for the construction of next generation manned/unmanned teaming systems on the future battlefield for our military.