A real human pilot fought against an artificial intelligence-powered virtual jet operator in real-time! The military activity's goal is to lessen the costs involved in actual air combat training for fighter jet pilots.
U.S. Marine Captain Christopher Niemann of the VMFA-323 "Death Rattlers" squadron flies his F/A-18 Hornet over Kuwait March 27, 2003 as he returns to the USS Constellation from a mission over Baghdad. War planes from the Constellation continue to carry out bombing missions in support Operation Iraqi Freedom.
According to Futurism's latest report, as of the moment, real aircraft still have to fly into together with its enemy jet fighter when conducting air combat training.
Daniel Robinson, a veteran F-22 pilot, wore an augmented reality headset with a mounted display to monitor his virtual opponents while operating an experimental plane.
On the other hand, Robinson's AI opponent was a virtual representation of a Chinese stealth fighter jet. The U.S.-based autonomous technologies EpiSci developed the artificial intelligence pilot.
AI could be the best partner of pilots
Chris Gentile, the vice president for tactical autonomous systems in EpiSci, said that the company's Tactical AI demonstrated the ability to work on a real jet, which was revealed in the first-ever within-visual-range dogfight against an AI bandit.
Lt. Col. Troy Fontaine, A Test Pilot From The Air Force Flight Test Center, And Maj. Kevin Steffenson, A Weapons System Officer, Drop Five Mk-84 Joint Direct Attack Bombs From An F-15 Eagle April 30, 2002 Over The Navy's China Lake Test Range In California. The Mission, Which Proved Successful, Was To Ripple The Five, 2000-Pound Weapons On Five Separate, Pre-Planned Targets Using Global Positioning System Coordinates.
The air combat training system startup Red Six created the pilot's augmented reality headset's simulation.
"Pilots of the future will need to be comfortable teaming with AI - and training is the ideal place to introduce this technology," said Gentile via Futurism.
The AlphaDogFight
The latest air combat simulation event was based on the previous program called AlphaDogfight. According to Popular Mechanics' previous report, the round robin tournament was the culmination of a yearlong effort by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).
The recent event involved several recruited startups, defense contractors, and university laboraties to create an artificial intelligence that can compete with a F-16 Fighting Falcon jet in a dog fight.
The final outcome was 5-0, in favor of of the AI pilot, which also claimed victory against other companies' artificial intelligence.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
