Will the future of the U.S. military aircraft fleet be uncrewed?
NewsMay 08, 2024
Flavia Camargos Pereira
Military Embedded Systems
SOF WEEK 2024 -- TAMPA, Florida. The U.S. military has been increasing efforts to develop trusted autonomy capabilities for its aircraft fleet. The Department of Defense (DoD) and its services and agencies have been working on several programs to enable the operation of their in-service airplanes by using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) software.
As a result of the U.S. commitment to this domain, Frank Kendall, the Secretary of the Air Force, recently flew in the front seat of an X-62A Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft (VISTA) out of Edwards Air Force Base in California.
During Kendall’s flight, the controls of the aircraft remained untouched and the platform conducted several tactical maneuvers under the control of highly specialized software to test autonomous flying and other cutting-edge capabilities. This technology was tested through a collaboration between the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) as part of DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program.
The initiative also involved several suppliers, including EpiSci, a California-based provider of AI solutions.
At SOF Week 2024, ongoing this week in Tampa, Chris Gentile, VP of Tactical Autonomous Solutions at EpiSci, explained that the VISTA aircraft was built by one company, the hardware modifications were done by another, and the AI software to fly the plane was written by three other companies.
"In the past, it would be a package deal. Now, if that [involvement of several suppliers] continues, it is going to allow us to deliver capability much faster than ever before," Gentile noted. "It is really how we will stay ahead and continue to maintain our advantage." He also stressed that the VISTA program "is not about replacing Maverick with a robot" but "proving that the AI can do these simpler, build-up tasks."
The development and testing of autonomous capabilities aligns with the Pentagon guidelines to stop short of full autonomy to AI capabilities. "There will always be humans controlling and directing this, but the point is: Can I make those individual humans more effective by making the tools easier to use?" Gentile noted.
EpiSci contributes to other Pentagon initiative to improve trusted autonomous technologies; the company supplies solutions to different platforms ranging from very small uncrewed aerial systems (sUASs) all the way up to the F-16.
Its products have in common a core technology called Tactical AI, a software product and a design philosophy to build high-performance capacities that are portable between platforms.
The USAF also runs the Viper Experimentation and Next-gen Operations Model -- Autonomy Flying Testbed (VENOM-AFT) program, an initiative intended to accelerate the testing of autonomy software on crewed and uncrewed aircraft.
For DARPA's part, it conducts the Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System (ALLAS) project, which focuses on developing and flight-demonstrating a flexible extensible automation architecture for existing manned aircraft that enables safe, reduced crew operations.
