Skyborg Advanced System is Under Way
This post is also available in: 
עברית (Hebrew)
An artificial intelligence-driven suite of systems could be flying loyal wingman type drones operationally by 2023. The U.S. Air Force has announced the first step toward making its Skyborg system a reality. This program aims to develop a suite of systems that will form a single artificial intelligence-driven “computer brain” that would be able to fly future low-cost “loyal wingman” type drones, which would work together with manned aircraft, and potentially fully-autonomous unmanned combat air vehicles, or UCAVs.
The goal of the program is to develop a set of systems that the Air Force can install in an unmanned aircraft, with as little modification as possible, which would allow it to conduct various tasks with minimal, if any direct human interaction.
The Air Force also plans to acquire unmanned aircraft to support the development of the Skyborg package and possibly carry a final version of the systems operationally by 2023.
A call for “technical and cost proposals” was issued for the Skyborg Prototyping, Experimentation, and Autonomy Development (SPEAD) project.
According to the notice, the service expects to hand out developmental deals, worth up to $400 million each, to multiple contractors to integrate the Skyborg system into an actual unmanned aircraft.
The Air Force wants the Skyborg suite’s hardware and software to be modular, “open architecture” designs that will allow for the rapid addition of upgrades and all-new capabilities as time goes on.
The program was first publicly announced in March 2019. The suite of systems might not initially enable a drone to do anything a manned aircraft can’t do, at least in terms of specific tasks. However, the artificial intelligence-driven package will inherently be capable of making decisions, within its defined parameters, faster and more reliably than a human pilot,
especially in a stressful combat situation where they might find themselves overwhelmed, as reported by thedrive.com.
