Airborne Virtual Training for Fighter Pilots

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Fighters are frequently not being used to their full potential, with severely limited opportunities for pilot training. An advanced training method for US Air Force fighter pilots could prepare them to dogfight Chinese and Russian opponents.

Red 6 Aerospace proposes pilots to use artificial intelligence and augmented reality as antagonists while they’re actually flying in real-time training.

Through the combination of modified hardware and software technologies Red 6 has created, pilots would wear a display technology or visor on their helmets while flying in a fighter aircraft.

“This technology works in a real airplane against artificial intelligence-driven augmented reality aircraft up in the sky,” Daniel Robinson, founder and CEO, told military.com.

“When we look through that visor, we see synthetically generated aircraft, or virtual aircraft … that are not actually really there,” he said. The generated images are made possible by the Airborne Tactical Augmented Reality System, known as A-TARS, which works in tandem with the tactical AI made by EpiSci.

The AI-driven image “looks at maneuvers and fights” in relation to a pilot, who is flying a real airplane at the time. “Those synthetically generated aircraft are driven and controlled by artificial intelligence — so it’s the craziest thing. You have something that doesn’t exist, that you see and perceive to exist, controlled by artificial intelligence,” Robinson said.