And F-35s are really fast. By the time you recognize and can target it, it’ll fly behind a cloud or something. So not only do you need to make a really fast rocket w/ vision-based AI integrated, it also needs to be able to detect said plane at great distances, as well as maneuver well enough to see it as it exits clouds and whatnot. That’s a lot more complicated than slapping radar on something with heat tracking at close distances.
Also night
And that a plane at altitude is too small for wide field cameras which means scanning the sky with narrow fov detectors.
And F-35s are really fast. By the time you recognize and can target it, it’ll fly behind a cloud or something. So not only do you need to make a really fast rocket w/ vision-based AI integrated, it also needs to be able to detect said plane at great distances, as well as maneuver well enough to see it as it exits clouds and whatnot. That’s a lot more complicated than slapping radar on something with heat tracking at close distances.
this has existed for over 2 decades now btw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroFIRST_PIRATE
Wouldn’t matter for IR vision, which the F-35 already has.