US Air Force confirms first successful AI dogfight

The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday officially acknowledged the first successful dogfight between U.S. Air Force-controlled fighter jets. Artificial intelligence (AI) And a plane piloted by a human.

of AI vs. Human Aerial Combat The experiment was conducted as part of the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program launched in 2019 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The Air Force conducted the AI ​​dogfight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, home of the 412th test. wing.

The dogfight pitted a manned F-16 against an experimental version of the F-16, the X-62A VISTA (Variable Flight Simulator Test Aircraft). ​​Jent was utilized. in front.

“The potential for autonomous air-to-air combat has been imagined for decades, but reality has remained a distant dream until now,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a press release. “In 2023, the X-62A broke one of the most important barriers in combat aviation. This is a transformative moment, all made possible by the groundbreaking work of the X-62A ACE team. .”

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As the first part of the test, Air Force It explained that flight safety was established through defensive maneuvers before proceeding to “offensive high-aspect nose-to-aircraft combat where aircraft approach up to 2,000 feet at 1,200 miles per hour.” The Air Force and DARPA announcements did not say whether the AI ​​or human plane won the dogfight.

Traditional autonomous control of aircraft has been in place for decades, the Air Force explained. machine learning It has historically been prohibited due to its high risk and lack of independent control. The Air Force says that over 21 test flights, the test team made more than 100,000 lines of flight-critical software changes.

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Test pilots were in the X-62A during dogfights and did not have to switch off the AI ​​system. (Air Force / Kyle Brazier / U.S. Air Force 412th Test Wing / DVIDS / FOX News)

Test pilots flew the X-62A and had the ability to disable the AI, but were not required to activate the safety switch at any time during dogfights. Edwards test rangesaid the Air Force. “We have to be able to trust these algorithms in order to use them in real-world environments,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Heffron, his ACE program manager at DARPA.

“The first-ever use of machine learning-based autonomy in flight-critical systems will lay the foundation for future aerospace AI advances that will be safer and more reliable for both commercial and defense applications.” the Air Force wrote.

DARPA and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School continue to advance testing using machine learning. X-62A Vista We serve a variety of research customers and provide academic lessons for future tests and programs.

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DARPA and the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School continue to advance testing using machine learning. (Air Force / Kyle Brazier / U.S. Air Force 412th Test Wing / DVIDS / FOX News)

“It’s very easy to look at the X-62A ACE program and think it’s autonomous and capable of dogfights, but that’s beside the point,” said Bill Gray, principal test pilot at the Test Pilot School. “Air combat was a problem to solve so that we could start testing autonomous artificial intelligence systems in the air. All the lessons we learned apply to any task that can be given to autonomous systems. .”

The Air Force noted that the ACE program involves collaboration among various partners in government, private industry, and academia.

The Air Force and DARPA installed an AI agent on the X-62A VISTA less than a year after the successful AI air combat test. (Air Force / Kyle Brazier / U.S. Air Force 412th Test Wing / DVIDS / FOX News)

Government partners include the Air Force Test Center, Air Force Research Laboratory, DARPA, and Air Force Test Pilot School, and academic partners include Johns Hopkins University and MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

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Calspan Co., Ltd., Cubic Co., Ltd., EpiSci, lockheed martin skunk works Shield AI is one of the industry partners in the ACE program.