Posted on 03/30/2023 6:32:29 AM PDT by Twotone
To lay the groundwork for the U.S. Air Force’s Combat Collaborative Aircraft (CCA) program, which will explore tactical human-machine teaming concepts, the service will be giving select F-16 Viper fighter jets the ability to fly themselves.
Dubbed Project Viper Experimentation and Next-Gen Operations Mode (VENOM), the initiative will outfit six F-16s from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida with autonomy agents that a human pilot will experiment with in flight. The hope is that the project will allow the Air Force to assess how it can best bridge autonomous and crewed formations while building trust in the autonomy. This is a major issue for the USAF's future manned-unmanned teaming hopes, which you can read all about here.
New details about Project VENOM were discussed by Air Force officials on Monday during an online webinar focused on Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. The panel of generals from across the service explained to attendees how Project VENOM will help work autonomy into more routine testing as well as refine what is expected of the aircraft developed under the CCA program. The CCA effort seeks to produce at least 1,000 autonomous drones with high autonomy that can work as 'loyal wingmen' alongside and network with crewed aircraft, like the future NGAD platform.
“Project VENOM right now is bringing in F-16s that will put autonomy on to help us get after the autonomy that we need to get that into kind of daily operation,” said Maj. Gen. Evan C. Dertien, commander, Air Force Test Center. “So, I see lots of challenges as far as building this NGAD family of systems, but I also see lots of opportunities to go deliver something new and innovative that will help out the warfighter.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thedrive.com ...
Artificial Intelligence and the new technologies are radically changing the nature of warfare. Drones have already made naval surface combatants and almost all formations of land armored vehicles obsolete. The technologies have also made helicopters and even fixed wing aircraft extremely vulnerable and not combat effective over a battlefield against a modestly technologically sophisticated opponent. Nor is is good for the foot soldier who can be sensed or heard. The Ukraine war has demonstrated to war planners just how real these changes have become even when using the first versions of this equipment. The Armenian-Azerbagani war was instructive and predictive as the drone armed Azerbaganis quickly decimated Armenian armor.
What could go wrong? 🙄
I think I’ve seen this movie...
The original F-16 prototype would turn so quickly that no human being could possibly survive the turns it was capable of, they basically nerfed it to make a human pilot possible. They should unnerf it so that it has the greatest capability to dogfight. Then have the Drone brain pilot it
Odd, since Boeing already has the working Autonomous Wingman program.
HOW much does a military plane cost???
Seems expensive for “experiments”
There is a TV show called MAYDAY that tells about various aviation crashes all over the world & the re-enactments of what happened.
Should have called it SKYHOOK.
Now AI has an air force.
...F-16 Viper...
F-16 Falcon.
I worked on F-16's up to 1990 and never heard them called Vipers. Where did that come from?
Project name.
I built the AI that worked really well for this back in the’90s. But DARPA had to spend billions on the big companies for crap. I also told them to use the F-16 as a test bed, but it took them over 20 years to figure that out. And the current winning AI for air to air is essentially useless.
It seems to me that AI controlled aircraft have been around since computer games. Those are virtual but could they be ported over to a real aircraft? Some flight sims have some very realistic flight dynamics built into them.
The original F-16 prototype would turn so quickly that no human being could possibly survive the turns it was capable of, they basically nerfed it to make a human pilot possible.
***********************************************8
9 G’s max, hard-wired into the fly-by-wire computers. If you need 9.5 Gs to avoid hitting the ground you ride the rocket. Worked on ‘em.
I saw that movie. Starred Clint Howard, if I remember right.
Original wings were flexible and they would change shape based on how quickly you were traveling, also when you started to take a turn the wings would actually Flex to allow you to turn at a tighter angle of attack, it didn’t work out because they figured out no human could possibly survive the Gs that were involved. It was an insane amount, I want to say 14 G’s
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