An AI fighter jet was created to reduce human casualties and create a new method for combat in flight.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced that it has developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithm for an autonomous F-16 fighter jet less than three years after creating the control simulated F-16 aircraft.
The flight took place in Lockheed Martin's VISTA X-62A.
DARPA used its Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program to create the autonomous jet, but says the planes are not meant to fly without a pilot present. The Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California flew the AI F-16 jet for several days and tracked the live flight data. What they found was that the plane could be trusted to fly on its own but said there was a safety pilot on board in case a problem arose.
“VISTA [Variable In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft] allowed us to simplify the program by skipping the planned subscale phase and proceeding directly to a full-scale implementation, saving a year or more and providing performance feedback in real-world flight conditions.” During the testing phase, Hefron said the F-16 took off and landed in different conditions, adversaries, and using simulated weapons capabilities, but ACE did not note any problems. The ACE program is also supported by the Test Pilot School to provide additional training and information to discern the comfort level pilots have when flying an AI jet. Additional tests include whether pilots trust the plane in visual range dogfighting, also known as dogfighting, while the pilot simultaneously focuses on "larger battle management tasks in the cockpit."
The F-16 autonomous jet is just one of more than 600 AI Department of Defense projects and has been funded by the US government since 2018, when it signed on to spend more than $2 billion on projects AI over the course of five years, VICE reported. But in 2022, the government reportedly spent $2.58 billion on AI research and development, such as building robots and wearable technology.
Source: Gizmodo
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