Some time ago we came up with the a priori strange, but ultimately very powerful idea of turning the immense reserves of American fighter planes into an army of zombie planes in order to drown possible enemies among hordes of opponents relatively cheaply and, because they are not manned by Humans infinitely more expendable than an F-35.
More recently, and of course without taking into account all the advances that have been made by American or other military drones in recent years, the US Air Force announced that it is considering creating a fleet of autonomous jumbo jets that are capable to fly from point A to point B without a human having to press a button or hold a stick.
All of this is due to one thing: the advances that can be made by the artificial intelligences responsible for keeping these devices in the air, taking them off, landing them and making them fight other planes if necessary.
That is the goal of the X-62A “Vista” from Lockheed Martin, more precisely its famous experimental department Skunk Works: to be a development and test platform for the systems of the future. The device is also linked to the fates of a completely different program called “Skyborg”, but its forms make it easily recognizable.
Based at Edwards Air Force Base, California, the X-62A (formerly NF-16A) is a good old F-16 converted to be piloted by an algorithmic robot and appears to be making very rapid progress. The device, which has now become indispensable to American military interests, broke a fine record last December, which says a lot about its learning speed.
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According to the US Air Force, and as specifically reported by Ars Technica, the Vista (for “Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft”) flew for seventeen hours under the guidance of artificial intelligence, a mission that included “enhanced combat maneuvers” and ” Interventions that go beyond the visual field”.
For this purpose, as described by Interesting Engineering, the device is equipped with several systems that, working together, allow it to do without the intervention of a pilot in all the tasks that are usually assigned to it. These robots include Calspan’s VISTA Simulation System (VSS) and Lockheed Martin’s Model Following Algorithm (MFA) and System for Autonomous Control of the Simulation (SACS).
However, during the 17-hour test phase, a human pilot remains in the cockpit, ready to take over the controls in the event of a problem – which he apparently didn’t have to do. These flight tests are particularly useful for confirming in real conditions what computer simulations and artificial intelligence have predicted in their virtual world.
“Having trained our AI-controlled autonomous agents to a high level using computer models and simulations, it is crucial that we fly them to validate the differences between simulation and real flight,” explained an official of the project. An aircraft like the X-62A Vista is critical to being able to quickly test these automated behaviors.”
With this incremental method, the aircraft flies, its automated systems are tested and can be adapted to real-world conditions in a matter of hours once a problem arises. The X-62A can then reboot to test the changes made to its software and systems.