US Air Force wants to pit AI-powered drone against its dogfighting hotshots in battle of the skies next year
(2020/06/09)
- Reference: 1591665296
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/06/09/us_military_drones/
- Source link:
The US Air Force wants to pit an autonomous aircraft against another fighter jet controlled by a human pilot in July 2021.
The American Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has been quietly working towards that goal for a while, and it has more than one ongoing project focused on building unmanned, autonomous aircraft.
The ambitious battle was hinted at by Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, [1]according to Air Force Mag. Shanahan [2]recently retired as director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and has had a long career in the Air Force spanning more than 35 years.
In an interview with The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, he revealed that Steve Rogers, a senior scientist for autonomy at the AFRL, wanted to test autonomous aircraft against humans “in some sort of air-to-air dogfight” next year in July. Shanahan called it a “bold idea”.
“[Team leader Steve Rogers] is probably going to have a hard time getting to that flight next year…when the machine beats the human,” Shanahan said. “If he does it, great.”
You can watch the full interview here.
[3]Youtube Video
The idea for a machine versus meatbag showdown was [4]initially described as a “moonshot” by Rogers, who leads the AFRL’s Autonomy Capability Team 3. The team was [5]given funding to develop machine learning software to drive “manned-unmanned combat” to “demonstrate autonomy capabilities to develop and demonstrate autonomy technologies that will improve Air Force operations through human-machine teaming and autonomous decision-making.”
US Air Force inks deal with Raytheon on Windows 10 (and other) support for ARSE [6]READ MORE
Shanahan did not reveal any technical details about what type of drone would be used in such a fight or what technologies were driving autonomous military aircraft. The US Air Force also has another program to experiment with self-flying combat vehicles called [7]Skyborg . It aims to have a working prototype by 2023.
“We know there is heavy investment by our near-peer adversaries in artificial intelligence and autonomy in general,” Ben Tran, Skyborg’s program manager, previously [8]said in a statement.
“We know that when you couple autonomy and AI with systems like low-cost attritables, that can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for our Air Force and so the 2023 goal line is our attempt at bringing something to bear in a relatively quick time frame to show that we can bring that kind of capability to the fight.” ®
Sponsored: [9]Security Features of Connect for Anthos
[1] https://www.airforcemag.com/air-force-to-test-fighter-drone-against-human-pilot/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/08/ai_roundup_080620/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAA0HdB7zqE
[4] https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/rapid-autonomy-development-team-sets-18-month-plan-autonomous-fighter-jet
[5] https://govtribe.com/opportunity/federal-contract-opportunity/science-and-technology-for-autonomous-teammates-stat-fa865017s6001
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/01/us_air_force_awards_deal_raytheon/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/20/skyborg_us_military_drone/
[8] https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1796930/skyborg-program-seeks-industry-input-for-artificial-intelligence-initiative/
[9] https://go.theregister.com/tl/1956/-8474/security-features-of-connect-for-anthos?td=wptl1956
The American Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has been quietly working towards that goal for a while, and it has more than one ongoing project focused on building unmanned, autonomous aircraft.
The ambitious battle was hinted at by Lieutenant General Jack Shanahan, [1]according to Air Force Mag. Shanahan [2]recently retired as director of the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center and has had a long career in the Air Force spanning more than 35 years.
In an interview with The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, he revealed that Steve Rogers, a senior scientist for autonomy at the AFRL, wanted to test autonomous aircraft against humans “in some sort of air-to-air dogfight” next year in July. Shanahan called it a “bold idea”.
“[Team leader Steve Rogers] is probably going to have a hard time getting to that flight next year…when the machine beats the human,” Shanahan said. “If he does it, great.”
You can watch the full interview here.
[3]Youtube Video
The idea for a machine versus meatbag showdown was [4]initially described as a “moonshot” by Rogers, who leads the AFRL’s Autonomy Capability Team 3. The team was [5]given funding to develop machine learning software to drive “manned-unmanned combat” to “demonstrate autonomy capabilities to develop and demonstrate autonomy technologies that will improve Air Force operations through human-machine teaming and autonomous decision-making.”
US Air Force inks deal with Raytheon on Windows 10 (and other) support for ARSE [6]READ MORE
Shanahan did not reveal any technical details about what type of drone would be used in such a fight or what technologies were driving autonomous military aircraft. The US Air Force also has another program to experiment with self-flying combat vehicles called [7]Skyborg . It aims to have a working prototype by 2023.
“We know there is heavy investment by our near-peer adversaries in artificial intelligence and autonomy in general,” Ben Tran, Skyborg’s program manager, previously [8]said in a statement.
“We know that when you couple autonomy and AI with systems like low-cost attritables, that can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for our Air Force and so the 2023 goal line is our attempt at bringing something to bear in a relatively quick time frame to show that we can bring that kind of capability to the fight.” ®
Sponsored: [9]Security Features of Connect for Anthos
[1] https://www.airforcemag.com/air-force-to-test-fighter-drone-against-human-pilot/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/08/ai_roundup_080620/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAA0HdB7zqE
[4] https://insidedefense.com/daily-news/rapid-autonomy-development-team-sets-18-month-plan-autonomous-fighter-jet
[5] https://govtribe.com/opportunity/federal-contract-opportunity/science-and-technology-for-autonomous-teammates-stat-fa865017s6001
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/01/us_air_force_awards_deal_raytheon/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/20/skyborg_us_military_drone/
[8] https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1796930/skyborg-program-seeks-industry-input-for-artificial-intelligence-initiative/
[9] https://go.theregister.com/tl/1956/-8474/security-features-of-connect-for-anthos?td=wptl1956
Which aircraft will the meat pilot use?
Fokker Dr.1? Sopwith Camel? A-10? Curious to see what the Air Force brass considers a "fair fight" against a drone, albeit a smarted-up one. Also remember that as the F-35 was being manufactured and put through its initial testing phases, a fly-off between it and the A-10 (the jet F-35 was hoped to replace) was promised. Despite all the huffing and puffing about how great the F-35 would be, when the fly-off actually happened, it was not announced, not hardly covered by the local media, and was reported to have been skewed to the F-35's strengths (-- https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2018/07/13/a10-vs-f35-close-air-support-fly-off-shrouded-in-secrecy/ --). Maybe we'll get better notice and coverage of the drone -v- dog fight?