Artificial intelligence (AI) technology company Shield AI on Thursday said has teamed with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions [KTOS] to integrate its autonomous piloting technology into the defense company’s XQ-58 Valkyrie stealthy unmanned combat jet aerial vehicle with the goal of realizing crewed and uncrewed teaming for jet aircraft.
Shield AI has developed an AI pilot it calls Hivemind, which can operate autonomously in contested air and battlespace without GPS and communications. The software has already flown on an F-16 fighter, Shield AI’s Group 3 V-BAT unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that takes off and lands vertically but flies like a fixed-wing aircraft, and a small quadcopter UAS.
Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s president and co-founder, highlighted the use of drones in the ongoing war in Ukraine, noting that Ukraine is losing thousands of the systems each month due to Russian jamming.
“If an uncrewed aircraft is unable to operate without GPS and without communications, it will be near useless in future conflicts,” Tseng said in a statement. “AI pilots enable teams of aircraft to intelligently execute missions without GPS and communications. When you take an incredible, affordable uncrewed jet aircraft like the XQ-58 and pair it up with our AI pilot, you create a game changing strategic deterrent.”
Ryan Tseng, CEO and co-founder of Shield AI, said partnering with Kratos will enable a rapid advance in producing an “intelligent uncrewed jet aircraft on a timeline that is, quite frankly, going to shock some people.”
The Air Force is developing a concept for autonomous collaborative combat aircraft, what it calls the CCA, which would team with manned fighter planes such as the F-35 and the future Next Generation Air Dominance fighter, providing greater combat scale in the air and opening new warfighting concepts that could come with manned-unmanned teaming.
The flight-proven XQ-58 is a potential candidate for the CCA effort, but Brandon Tseng told Defense Daily via email that the partnership with Kratos is “being launched outside of any government program and seeks to rapidly bring to market a game-changing product at the speed of world events. However, we do anticipate that the technologies developed under this rapid product development effort will be aligned to and benefit future programs of record. If you look across the DoD, everyone is interested in uncrewed jet aircraft. By collaborating closely with jet aircraft manufacturers and making significant investments in our own resources, we are committed to introducing an AI pilot product specifically designed for uncrewed jets and group 5 UAS.
Group 5 UAS weigh more than 1,320 pounds and have a flight level greater than 18,000 feet at standard air pressure.
In addition to the Valkyrie, Kratos manufactures various relatively affordable unmanned aerial jets and target vehicles under contracts with the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps.
Eric DeMarco, CEO of Kratos, said in a statement the partnership with Shield AI will let his company “rapidly bring the first and best crewed-uncrewed teaming aircraft to market.”
Brandon Tseng told Defense Daily that “Our two teams have worked together in 2023 to ensure technical alignment and determine a viable path to bringing real autonomy to the uncrewed jet market.”
Ryan Tseng said that eventually his company’s AI pilot technology will be on other uncrewed jets.