SKYBORG

Some of the information for this post came from the publication “Military & Aerospace Electronics”. 

Someone once said, “If it looks like it will fly, it probably will”.  This is an example of the “duck test”.  If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.

With that in mind, take a look at the digital picture below and tell me—does it look like it will fly?

The US Air Force is flying at supersonic speeds towards an AI-enabled fleet. Under project Skyborg’s direction, future fighter jets won’t be supported by a wingman, but by an unmanned combat aerial vehicle.  More and more the United States Air Force and other branches of our Department of Defense are moving towards unmanned aircraft.  Skyborg is the latest example of that effort.   Skyborg is incorporating AI, artificial intelligence, into the control system.   The United States Air Force is asking nine (9) companies to provide mature enabling technologies to prototype a low-cost unmanned combat aircraft.  The project name is, as mentioned, called Skyborg.  The final design not only will have artificial intelligence but allow for modular payloads.  This feature will allow for a wide variety of fighter and ground-attack capabilities. 

Officials of the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Ohio have announced that the nine companies will share as much as four hundred million ($400M) to develop technologies for a prototype of the Skyborg Autonomous Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV).

The nine (9) companies involved with the program are:

• AeroVironment Inc. in Simi Valley, California
• BAE Systems Controls & Avionics Solutions in Endicott, N.Y.
• Blue Force Technologies in Morrisville, N.C.
• Fregata Systems LLC in St. Louis
• Lockheed Martin Corporation Aeronautics in Fort Worth, Texas
• Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas
• NexGen Aeronautics in Torrance, California
• Sierra Technical Services, Inc. in Tehachapi, California.
• Autonodyne LLC in Boston, Massachusetts

Finger four has been the dominant fighter aircraft formation since the 1930s. The world’s most advanced fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-35, costs around one hundred million ($100m) per jet.  Four of these in formation means almost half a billion dollars of hardware in the air (not including the per hour cost of flying them). Losing just one fighter would be catastrophic for the US Air Force’s budget.

The Skyborg project will make efforts to address this cost risk by replacing much of these expensive fighter jets with more affordable unmanned combat aerial vehicles acting as unmanned wingmen.

Skyborg program manager Ben Tran explained the significance of the program: “There is heavy investment by our near-peer adversaries in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy in general. We know that when you couple autonomy and AI with systems like low-cost attractables, that can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for our air force. 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.”

These contracts will provide for Skyborg prototyping, experimentation, and autonomy development to deliver missionized prototypes in support of operational experimentation.  Once fielded, the Skyborg unmanned combat aircraft will enable warfighters to adjust the plane’s payload and autonomy modularity to support an array of missions.  Researchers are interested only in technologies that quickly move to operational use.

Skyborg will have an open AI software architecture and toolkits that enable timely modifications and upgrades of complex autonomous behaviors: have a modular open-systems mission hardware, and meet military certifications and acquisition requirements.

Researchers are interested in the ability to autonomously to avoid other aircraft, terrain, obstacles, and hazardous weather; conduct autonomous takeoffs and returns; have separate sensor payloads and flight computers to allow for modular adjustments and adaptability; and have mission-planning software that integrates with next-generation Air Force mission planning tools that emphasize modularity and openness.

Incorporating AI into the software package is a first for the Air Force.  This is a huge step in the right direction.