AFRL Autonomous Aircraft Experimentation

Credit: Francis Foose | Date Taken: 07/05/2023
The Air Force Research Laboratory’s, or AFRL, Strategic Development, Planning and Experimentation, or SDPE, office has worked with other partners across the United States Air Force to perform operational experimentation in support of the Skyborg Vanguard. This effort was able to successfully: 1. Demonstrate the scope and scale of work which will be necessary to operationalize artificial intelligence, or AI, and deliver tactical autonomy to the warfighter and 2. Transition a process to mature autonomy concepts through digital simulation, surrogate human-on-the-loop testing, and prototype uncrewed platform flight test to deliver relevant operational capability for the future. In this AFRL video, members of the Autonomous Aircraft Experiment Team explain how they are using flight simulators to train Artificial Intelligence-powered systems for future-fight scenarios -- and then testing that training with autonomy-capable aircraft. With this experimentation campaign, AFRL is taking autonomous research concepts that exist in a lab and turning them into operational realities for our nation’s warfighters. Requests for additional information should be directed to AFRL Public affairs (AFRL/PA) at afrl.pa.inquiry@us.af.mil.