The Pentagon's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) project officially has five companies competing to create AI-powered drones for the U.S. Air Force. The project's goal is to deploy AI drones alongside human-piloted jets and shield them from enemy fire by serving as escorts with full weaponry and as communications centers or scouts.
(Photo: ANDY JACOBSOHN/AFP via Getty Images)
Drones are checked for air worthiness before flying from a Wing facility in Frisco, Texas on August 31, 2022. - Wing, whose parent company is Alphabet Inc., is the first carrier certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration to operate a drone for delivery in major US metro areas, according to Jacob Demmitt, Wing's manager of marketing and communications.
The five companies pursuing the Pentagon's program are reportedly Anduril Industries, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin. By the summer, the Pentagon intends to select two firms to begin producing the jets.
The drone project is part of a $6 billion Pentagon effort driven mostly by breakthroughs in flight software and the skyrocketing cost of current military aircraft. The Air Force is shifting its focus to a new generation of pilotless aircraft to support a fleet of less expensive AI drones.
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US Military's Drones
The United States has used Reaper and Predator drones from General Atomics in multiple Middle East wars. Anduril is a new player in the space, established in 2017 by Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey, an innovator.
One of the sole firms that has showcased their entry, the Ghost Bat, is Boeing. It can fly slightly slower than the speed of sound and cover more than 2,000 nautical miles. Its length is between 20 and 30 feet.
Conversely, Anduril has demonstrated the application of AI in at least one drone, the Roadrunner, a jet-powered combat drone with AI guidance. Christian Brose, the CSO for Anduril, reportedly praised it as a "very low-cost, very high-quantity, increasingly sophisticated, and advanced aerial threat."
The Air Force plans to build at least 1,000 of the current-generation mini-fighters, including hundreds in the next five years. They would guard and accompany crewed aircraft like the new B-21 bomber and the F-35.
Larger jet-powered drones are thought to be essential to tackling the immense distances in the western Pacific. Still, smaller drones have revolutionized the battlefields across relatively short distances in Ukraine and parts of the Middle East. According to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, it has several capabilities that conventional crewed fighter aircraft need to be built for.
These new aircraft are thought to be indicative of advancements in flying software, which use artificial intelligence to create programs derived from many hours of combat flight experience. Software now allows planes to fly autonomously and adjust to changing battle situations, replacing the technology that allows planes to be flown from the ground.
Previous AI Drone Contracts
This is also not the first contract the US Air Force has done to implement AI drones in the military, as last year (2021) a similar contract. Specifically, the US Air Force's prior contract with RealNetworks, a Seattle-based software company, was to develop facial recognition technology and a method for drones to be completely autonomous.
The Department of Defense's 2021 contract opened the door for an $800,000 budget to develop facial recognition technology for its operations. Its most recent innovation was the use of AI-powered drones that will acquire facial recognition technology to complete the set for various USAF missions and monitoring.
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