Skyborg Autonomy Core System Flew Onboard MQ-20 Avenger During Orange Flag 21-2

[Saithan]

Skyborg Autonomy Core System Flew Onboard MQ-20 Avenger During Orange Flag 21-2​

July 1, 2021by Admin

The Skyborg team conducted a two hours and thirty minutes flight test on June 24 of the Skyborg autonomy core system (ACS) aboard a General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger tactical unmanned vehicle during the Orange Flag 21-2 Large Force Test Event at Edwards AFB, California. Skyborg is focused on demonstrating an open, modular ACS that can autonomously aviate, navigate, and communicate, and eventually integrate other advanced capabilities. Future Skyborg experimentation events will explore direct manned-unmanned teaming between manned aircraft and multiple ACS-controlled unmanned aircraft.
The test flight was part of the program’s Autonomous Attritable Aircraft Experimentation (AAAx) campaign line of effort to test and inform ACS development as it matures. The flight comes two months after the ACS was first demonstrated onboard a Kratos UTAP-22 tactical unmanned vehicle at Tyndall AFB, Florida on 29 April 2021. By integrating the ACS on the MQ-20 less than two months after completing tests on the UTAP-22, the Skyborg team proved the ACS’s modularity, portability, and scalability by demonstrating the same capabilities on a completely different aircraft using the same software release.


During the flight, the ACS performed a series of foundational behaviors necessary to characterize safe system operation. Once the MQ-20 safety pilot had achieved steady, level flight at altitude, the operator handed over control to the ACS to demonstrate its ability to execute basic flight autonomy behaviors. The ACS accomplished basic aviation behaviors and responded to navigational commands, while reacting to geo-fences, adhering to aircraft flight envelopes, and demonstrating coordinated maneuvering. It was monitored from a ground command and control station.

The Skyborg Vanguard team is a unique relationship that pairs Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle, Commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory as the Skyborg Technology Executive Officer (TEO) and Brig. Gen. Dale White, Program Executive Officer for Fighters and Advanced Aircraft as the Skyborg PEO. The Emerging Technologies Combined Test Force (ET-CTF), under the leadership of Lt Col Adam Brooks, serves as the executing agent for these test missions at the 412th Test Wing, Commanded by Brig. Gen Matthew Higer at Edwards AFB.

“As we have throughout our history, the test and evaluation enterprise is adapting our people and capabilities to compete at the speed of relevance. The execution of this flight test is a great milestone for our closely integrated development and acquisition team. Safely executing this test in conjunction with Orange Flag both expands the envelope for autonomous vehicle flight testing and improves warfighter confidence working with autonomous wingmen. As always, we’re highly motivated to help bring tomorrow’s technology to the warfighter today,” said Higer.

The ET-CTF is well-positioned to integrate and test emerging technologies, like autonomy, on various platforms (aircraft and weapons). The Avenger marks the first time the ET-CTF has worked on a Group 5 UAS. The Group 5 UAS category features the largest unmanned aircraft vehicles in size with a maximum gross takeoff weight of more than 1,320 lbs, an operating altitude of more than 18,000 feet and capable of speeds faster than 250 knots. The ET-CTF has provided critical infrastructure support and test expertise to Skyborg and will help lay the groundwork for integrating these aircraft into complex operational environments.


A General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger unmanned vehicle returns to El Mirage Airfield, Calif. June 24, 2021. The MQ-20 successfully participated in Edwards Air Force Base’s Orange Flag 21-2 to test the Skyborg Autonomy Core System. (Photo courtesy of General Atomics)

Skyborg Autonomy Core System Flew Onboard MQ-20 Avenger During Orange Flag 21-2 - MilitaryLeak.COM

The Skyborg team conducted a two hours and thirty minutes flight test on June 24 of the Skyborg autonomy core system (ACS) aboard a General Atomics MQ-20

militaryleak.com

Skyborg autonomy core system has successful first flight

Termed Milestone 1 of the Autonomous Attritable Aircraft Experimentation, or AAAx, campaign, the autonomy core system performed a series of foundational behaviors necessary to characterize safe system

www.af.mil

 

[Saithan]

Skyborg AI Computer "Brain" Successfully Flew A General Atomics Avenger Drone​

The Air Force's Skyborg continues to be integrated into more aircraft, signaling that a variety of aircraft could someday be flown by the AI system.​

BY BRETT TINGLEY JUNE 30, 2021

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has announced that its Skyborg autonomy core system, or ACS, successfully completed a flight aboard a General Atomics Avenger unmanned vehicle at Edwards Air Force Base. The Skyborg ACS is a hardware and software suite that acts as the "brain" of autonomous aircraft equipped with the system. The tests add more aircraft to the list of platforms Skyborg has successfully flown on, bringing the Air Force closer to a future in which airmen fly alongside AI-controlled “loyal wingmen.”

The Skyborg-controlled Avenger flew four two and a half hours on June 24, 2021, during the Orange Flag 21-2 Large Force Test Event at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Orange Flag is a training event held by the 412th Test Wing three times a year that “focuses on technical integration and innovation across a breadth of technology readiness levels,” according to an Air Force press release. You can read more about this major testing event in this past feature of ours.
The Avenger started its flight under the control of a human operator before being handed off to the Skyborg "pilot" at a safe altitude. A command and control station on the ground monitored the drone's flight, during which Skyborg executed "a series of foundational behaviors necessary to characterize safe system operation" including following navigational commands, flying within defined boundaries known as "geo-fences," adhering to safe flight envelopes, and demonstrating "coordinated maneuvering."

GENERAL ATOMICS
An Avenger in flight during Orange Flag 21-2 at Edwards Air Force Base. The tail number has been blurred out by General Atomics.
The Avenger made its first flight in 2009 as a jet-powered follow-on to General Atomics' Predator/Reaper family, featuring greater speed than its family members, a 20-hour flight time, some low-observable features, and a much higher flight ceiling of 50,000 feet. It can carry weapons internally in a weapons bay and externally. Only a handful of Avenger airframes have been produced and are used mostly out of the public eye and as testbed aircraft.

As of 2017, General Atomics had confirmed the sale of only one Avenger drone to the Air Force, but “up to seven” additional airframes were sold to an undisclosed U.S. government entity. However, General Atomics has previously eyed sales to unspecified international customers. Most of the details of the Avenger's operational use remain classified.

In December 2020, General Atomics, as well as Boeing and Kratos, had received a contract to supply unmanned aircraft to the Skyborg program to actually carry systems developed under that program in future tests. It had not previously been clear what design the company planned to provide to the Air Force.
The Avenger flown in the tests at Orange Flag was designated as an MQ-20, according to the Air Force. This is a curious nomenclature given that the U.S. military has already assigned the "Q-20" slot in its aircraft designation system to the AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma AE. The service has also previously applied the YQ-11 designation to the Avenger, which it has employed in various testing roles, which also conflicts with the RQ-11 nomenclature for the AeroVironment Raven. Of course, unusual and out-of-sequence designations are not unheard of, especially for experimental and test aircraft.

The Avenger's flight at Orange Flag was part of the AFRL’s larger Autonomous Attritable Aircraft Experimentation (AAAx), a program that has already seen the Skyborg ACS tested aboard a Kratos UTAP-22 Mako unmanned aircraft. The AAAx program appears to be aimed at eventually fielding autonomous air vehicles that are low-cost enough to operate in environments where there is a high chance of aircraft being lost, but are also reusable.

As part of that goal, the Skyborg program is developing an artificial intelligence-driven "computer brain" that could eventually autonomously control “loyal wingman” drones or even more advanced unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs). The AFRL wants the system to be able to perform tasks such as taking off and landing, to even making decisions on its own in combat based on situational variables.

The Air Force envisions Skyborg-equipped UAVs to operate both completely autonomously and in networked groups while tethered via datalinks to manned aircraft, all controlled by what the AFRL calls a "modular ACS that can autonomously aviate, navigate, and communicate, and eventually integrate other advanced capabilities." Skyborg-equipped wingmen fitted with their own pods or sensor systems could easily and rapidly add extended capabilities by linking to manned aircraft flying within line-of-sight of them.

After the program was first revealed in 2019, the Air Force’s then-Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Will Roper stated he wanted to see operational demonstrations within two years. The latest test flight of the Skyborg-equipped Avenger shows the service has clearly hit that benchmark.
The General Atomics Avenger was used in experiments with another autonomy system in 2020, developed as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) program that sought to develop drones that could demonstrate "collaborative autonomy," or the ability to work cooperatively.

Brigadier General Dale White, Skyborg Program Executive Officer says that the successful Skyborg ACS implementation aboard an Avenger demonstrates the Air Force’s commitment to remaining at the forefront of aerospace innovation. “This type of operational experimentation enables the Air Force to raise the bar on new capabilities, made possible by emerging technologies,” said White, “and this flight is a key milestone in achieving that goal.”
The 412th Test Wing’s Emerging Technologies Combined Test Force (ET-CTF) carried out the Skyborg-controlled Avenger tests. Brigadier General Matthew Higher, Commander of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards AFB, said that the tests demonstrate the Wing’s commitment to pushing the envelope:

As we have throughout our history, the test and evaluation enterprise is adapting our people and capabilities to compete at the speed of relevance. The execution of this flight test is a great milestone for our closely integrated development and acquisition team. Safely executing this test in conjunction with Orange Flag both expands the envelope for autonomous vehicle flight testing and improves warfighter confidence working with autonomous wingmen. As always, we’re highly motivated to help bring tomorrow’s technology to the warfighter today.

General Atomics' Avenger platform has also conducted flight tests equipped with Lockheed Martin’s Legion Pod, an infrared search and track sensor, or IRST, designed to detect and track other aircraft at long range. The Avenger was designed with a focus on air-to-ground strikes and surveillance, but could also be configured to fire air-to-air weapons.

USAF
A General Atomics Avenger in flight.
Now that the remotely-piloted aircraft (RPA) has also demonstrated itself capable of being flown by the Skyborg ACS, it very well could be that it finds itself operating in a wide variety of roles in the future, all controlled autonomously from its onboard “computer brain.” While the Avenger hasn't found a major customer, these demonstrations show that there is no reason why the UCAV couldn't be examined again for more autonomous operations in semi-contested environments. Then again, General Atomics is already looking towards what comes after the MQ-9 Reaper under the MQ-Next program, which will likely be a higher-end UCAV that is more survivable than the Avenger.

GENERAL ATOMICS
Concept art of notional successor to the MQ-9.
For the time being, the tests of the Skyborg ACS aboard an Avenger shows that the modular, open system can be successful employed aboard a variety of unmanned aircraft. As it develops further, Skyborg could very well prove itself to be a defining capability in terms of how the Air Force fights in the future.

Skyborg AI Computer "Brain" Successfully Flew A General Atomics Avenger Drone

The Air Force's Skyborg continues to be integrated into more aircraft, signaling that a variety of aircraft could someday be flown by the AI system.

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