The artificial intelligence that controlled the F-16 on which Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall flew last week was evenly matched in dogfights against a human pilot with more than 2,000 flight hours, Kendall said May 8, as he made the case that autonomy will become ...
The Air Force is exploring the potential of autonomous cargo craft, awarding a contract to tech company Reliable Robotics to study the feasibility of automating large, multi-engine airlifters. Reliable Robotics announced the contract Feb. 8, after previously working with the Air Force under three phases of ...
The Air Force will make a “significant investment” in uncrewed, collaborative combat aircraft in the fiscal 2024 budget, a quartet of generals announced at the Pentagon. They insisted that the technology is mature enough to move aggressively toward a program that will yield operational capability ...
Wargame results and opportunities to asymmetrically counter adversaries are driving the Pentagon’s investment choices in new technologies, said Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. She also said an unclassified document outlining the science and technologies underpinning the new National Defense Strategy will ...
The Air Force should build its capacity and striking power with collaborative combat aircraft but must put the teaming aspect of the new class of weapons first, getting the concepts and software right at the outset to ensure that autonomous airplanes do what’s needed and ...
The Air Force will look to the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in a closed solicitation that will create the Air Force's first university-affiliated research center (UARC), Air Force leaders said. The center will study tactical autonomy. The DAF will select the center's ...
Autonomous systems will emerge as critical in future fights, according to industry and military representatives who spoke at the AFA Warfare Symposium. They said they're convinced of the fact. But before this happens, they believe, Airmen, Guardians, and other troops must know they can trust ...
Successfully introducing new, unmanned aircraft in the Air Force, with varying degrees of autonomy, is at risk as long as there’s widespread disagreement about what an “autonomous” aircraft actually is, according to an upcoming paper from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. The think-tank urges ...
Air Force Research Laboratory Commander Maj. Gen. Heather L. Pringle is bringing fresh eyes and outsider perspectives to the storied lab, and she's hiring a new executive to ensure that it will serve the newly created Space Force as well as it serves its traditional ...
If the U.S. Space Force is going to be successful in a domain that makes the Indo-Pacific area of operations look small, speed is key. That’s why Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond said the newest military service is positioning itself to ...
The Trump Administration released a new national technology strategy on Oct. 15, which assigns investment priority to 20 technologies while calling for an all-of-government approach to develop and protect them. The Pentagon is already applying a number of the actions the new strategy lays out, ...
In its 20th assessment of Chinese military power, the Pentagon said China is leading the U.S. and the world in shipbuilding, ballistic missiles, and air defenses. Its combined air and naval air forces are the third-largest in the world and the largest in the Indo-Pacific ...