Plans for Skyborg

摘要

The US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is working on fielding a prototype autonomous unmanned combat air vehicle in a programme called Skyborg. An AFRL statement said a request for information was issued to industry in mid-March to conduct market research and concept of operations analysis, "to learn what is commercially available now as high technology readiness-level capabilities". Skyborg stood up as a fiscal year 2019-funded programme in October 2018 with the objective of fielding an early operational capability (EOC) prototype by the end of 2023. Skyborg programme manager Ben Tran said: "This is our first step in determining what the current state of the art is from a technology perspective and from a systems engineering perspective to provide that EOC capability .. . We know there is heavy investment by our near-peer adversaries in artificial intelligence [Al] and autonomy in general. We know that when you couple autonomy and Al with systems like low-cost attritables, that can increase capability significantly and be a force multiplier for our Air Force."