by Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The Air Force Research Laboratories famous Valkyrie XQ-58A “loyal wingman” drone is now flying autonomously with AI-enabled advanced algorithms designed to pilot the drone without any need for human intervention.
Algorithms advancing aerial autonomy have been in existence for many years now, and the Air Force has also already experimented with unmanned fighter jets even AI-enabled co-pilots such as a technology called ArtUu, yet fully AI-enabled unmanned drone operations introduce the possibility of massive operational breakthroughs.
AI enabled autonomous flight is yet another paradigm-changing breakthrough beyond just autonomy, as advanced algorithms linked with sensor data and navigational detail can instantly process fast-arriving new information from otherwise disparate sources to make adjustments in flight.
“The Air Force Research Laboratory led a successful three-hour sortie, July 25, demonstrating the first flight of AFRL-developed, machine-learning trained, artificial intelligence algorithms on an XQ-58A Valkyrie,” an Air Force essay on the experiment at Eglin Air Force Base said.
This means an AI-enabled Valkyrie drone could adjust course, change navigational heading, re-direct sensors and transmit fast-emerging target information across a networked force … all without needing human intervention. Advanced AI brings the promise of making these kinds of drone operations much faster, more advanced and capable of a wider set of missions. Warrior talked to former Air Force Research Laboratory Commander Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle about Valkyrie and manned-unmanned teaming last year during an earlier phase of the platforms development. She anticipated that maturing AI would increasingly enable the “loyal wingman” drone to lower the burden on manned pilots and command and control to paradigm-changing levels due to the integration of advanced AI. Pringle described the relationship between AI-enabled Valkyrie and human decision makers as symbiotic.
Video of Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle telling Warrior about Valkyrie last year
“There are still alot of really great S&T questions to answer. Right now when we see AI we often don’t fully understand why it is taking the actions that it is, because it is leveraging so much data and coming up with novel solutions that we can’t understand. We even have a line of research where we are looking at how can we engineer a machine to respond to what a human is learning, knowing, understanding and communicating,” Pringle said in a discussion about Valkryie last year.
Should a new target emerge such as enemy air defenses previously unknown to manned aircraft or command and control centers, an AI-enabled Valkryrie will operate with an ability to identify the new target and autonomously change course to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance on the target before performing the requisite analytics needed to identify the most relevant information, images or objects of consequence to human warfighters, then transmit the most critical data securely and accurately across a networked force .. in seconds. An AI-capable drone will operate with an ability to instantly respond and make changes when new variables, threats or information arrives.
The Valkyrie has, for instance, already shown it can share some information in flight with manned 5th-generation fighter jets such as the F-35 and F-22, yet a fully AI-enabled and controlled Valkyrie will gather, organize, process, analyze and transmit time-sensitive critical warfare data to both manned and unmanned nodes across a multi-domain force …. independently. An AI-enabled drone will, for instance, be able to solve problems and make key distinctions with regard to identifying enemy targets, obtaining and tracking new, previously unseen target and also aggregating, processing and performing analytics on vast amounts of incoming sensor, computer and targeting data to lower the cognitive burden and increase mission capability without placing humans at risk.
Kris Osborn President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
