DARPA Investigating Novel Air Superiority Architectures

DARPA has launched an initiative to develop and demonstrate concepts for maintaining air superiority through novel architectures of interoperable manned and unmanned platforms, weapons, sensors, and mission systems, announced the agency on Monday. The vision of the System of Systems Integration Technology and Experimentation program is to integrate new technologies and airborne systems with existing systems faster and at lower cost than near-peer adversaries can counter them, states DARPA’s release. “If we are successful, the services will be able to add or swap out capabilities across existing manned and unmanned platforms at lower cost and in shorter time,” said John Shaw, SoSITE program manager. “The goal is to plug modules that perform different airborne functions into any type of airborne platform and have them work seamlessly,” he added. DARPA has awarded contracts to Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman to develop and analyze promising system-of-system architectures. These companies are also designing plans for flight experimentation with these architectures, states the release. Apogee Systems, BAE Systems, and Rockwell Collins are developing tools and technologies to enhance open system architectures.