Artificial Intelligence Pilot? Self-Flying F-16 Craft Takes Off, Combats, and Touches Down All On Its Own

An adjusted F-16 fighter craft has successfully taken off, combated other craft, and landed on its own, all while being AI-controlled.

Artificial Intelligence Pilot

The Daily Mail reports that as it was undergoing test flights, the fighter jet, also known as VISTA (Variable In-Flight Simulator Test Aircraft) or X-62A, successfully conducted launching, landings, and fights without humans intervening with its performance. This took more than 17 hours in total.

This took place at Edwards Air Force Base last December. Vice reports that such flights showed how AI is capable of controlling fighter jets. It also offered live data regarding the flights.

Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Hefron from the Air Force says that they performed several takeoffs and landings across various test points on each one. This was done to evaluate the algorithms in different starting conditions, with faux weapon capacities, and against different faux adverse conditions.

While they did not experience any serious issues, they were able to observe striking variances compared to results generated from simulations. Mr. Hefron notes that such differences are quite expected, given the transition to live flight and combat.

It stresses how important it is to test autonomous capacity flights and to perform this on testbeds, such as VISTA. The test runs enabled them to get findings fast and iterate them more rapidly compared to other aerial crafts.

The X-62A is an altered F-16 craft with software that can be further programmed to make it serve as an aircraft variety. This increases the coverage of the AI behind it. It is currently going through various inspections, but it will continue flying within the year.

DARPA Air Combat Evolution Program

The DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the research arm of the Department of Defense, developed the algorithms that governed the AI. It is the first time AI has been used in tactical aerial crafts. Before this milestone, AI was only used in virtual simulations of F-16 combat.

The ACE (Air Combat Evolution) program of DARPA started in 2019 when the organization started a dogfighting project that was collaborated by both humans and machines. AI-controlled fights started getting tested in 2020, when AlphaDogfight trials were executed. AlphaDogfight trials refer to an intercompany competition to see who is capable of coming up with the best algorithm for an aerial vehicle powered by AI.

ACE is just one of the various projects by the Department of Defense that look into adding AI to nationwide defense endeavors. In fact, in 2018, the government allotted around $2 billion for AI projects in the coming years. Vice also reports that the government also shelled out $2.58 billion for AI development and research for the year 2022 alone.

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