Objectives  Cooperative operation of Manned/Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(MAV/UAV)hybrid formation in antisubmarine warfare can give full play to both MAV and UAV to improve the operational efficiency significantly, being one of the typical air operation modes in the future under the network condition.

  Methods  This paper analyzes the operational advantages and technical challenges of cooperative operation of MAV/UAV in antisubmarine warfare, and introduces the theoretical research status and equipment development of this operation at home and abroad. On this basis, this paper focuses on five typical operation modes in antisubmarine warfare, and based on the antisubmarine mission requirements, puts forward the cooperative operation planning, cooperative data chain, capacity requirement for antisubmarine warfare aircraft and UAV platform and the key technologies to be solved to achieve cooperative antisubmarine warfare.

  Results  It is shown that cooperation of MAV/UAV has great potential in antisubmarine warfare,

  Conclusions  and the findings provide guidance for future UAV equipment development and MAV/UAV cooperative antisubmarine warfare training.