2020-05-21 智邦网
编译 致远
据defensenews2020年5月20日报道,5月15日,美空军发布Skyborg样机招标,将人工智能技术装备系统集成到自主、低成本飞机,启动备受瞩目研发计划的项目竞争,开发Skyborg无人机,采用人工智能技术战场决策。
空军拟将Skyborg作为无人机系列,每个产品均为特定任务或系列任务而设计,有效载荷模块化硬件和软件设计,通用人工智能架构,软件可快速更新。
空军计划向多家公司斥资4亿美元开发不同型号的Skyborg系统,建议书6月15日到期。
承研单位将研制、开发、演示、集成和向飞机、有效载荷和自主技术及系统转型,通过Skyborg 计划为作战人员提供经济可承受的、变革性能力。
空军之前计划使用实验样机推动Skyborg2023年作战应用。空军采办执行官威尔·罗珀通过与星球大战机器人R2-D2比较后认为,Skyborg通过人工智能技术与有人机飞行员密切协同,反馈其数据,能实现自主使能。
空军正在探索Skyborg与洛马公司F-35和波音F-15E有人无人编组协同的可能性。2021财年,空军拟对包括Skyborg的三个“先锋计划”投资1.57亿美元。
More than one company could get cash to build the Air Force’s AI-equipped Skyborg drone
Concept art from the Air Force Research Lab shows how the F-35 could be linked to a series of drones through the “loyal wingman” concept. (Air Force Research Laboratory)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has kicked off a competition for one of its most highly anticipated tech programs, a drone known as Skyborg that will use artificial intelligence to make decisions in battle.
The service released a solicitation May 15 for Skyborg prototypes, which will merge autonomous, low-cost aircraft with a suite of artificial intelligence capabilities.
The Air Force envisions Skyborg as a family of drones — each designed for a specific mission or set of missions — with modular hardware and software payloads and a common AI backbone, which will allow software to be rapidly updated across the fleet.
Congress is going to have to step in if it wants the Air Force to make a Skyborg prototype this year.
The Air Force intends to give multiple companies $400 million to develop different versions of the Skyborg system, although it reserves the right to award just one or no contracts. Proposals are due June 15, with awards projected around July 8, according to the solicitation.
Once under contract, companies will “conduct research to develop, demonstrate, integrate and transition air vehicle, payload and autonomy technologies and systems that will provide affordable, revolutionary capabilities to the warfighter through the Skyborg program,” the Air Force said.
Skyborg will be what the service calls an attritable system, meaning that aircraft loss is expected and can be tolerated even though the system is not considered expendable and can be reused.
Aircraft should “generate massed combat power with minimal logistical footprints,” with cost per unit and the price of operating and maintaining the air vehicles a “small fraction” for that of the Air Force’s existing fighter inventory, according to the solicitation.
Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper has compared Skyborg to R2-D2, the Star Wars droid that feeds Luke Skywalker helpful information while piloting an X-Wing. Skyborg would build up efficacy on its own via artificial intelligence by working with manned pilots, who would issue commands to the drone and provide feedback on the data presented by it.
Last year, Roper told Defense News that the service was exploring the possibility of teaming Skyborg both with the Lockheed Martin F-35 and the Boeing F-15EX aircraft. The ability to team manned fighter jets with smart, autonomous drones could “open up the door for an entirely different way to do aerial combat,” he said in May 2019.
“We can take risk with some systems to keep others safer,” he said at the time. “We can separate the sensor and the shooter. Right now they’re collocated on a single platform with a person in it. In the future, we can separate them out, put sensors ahead of shooters, put our manned systems behind the unmanned.”
Kratos Defense and Security Solutions is already working with the Air Force on its XQ-58A Valkyrie drone, which logged its fourth successful flight test in January as part of the Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology program.
Earlier this month, Boeing rolled out its own loyal wingman drone, the Airpower Teaming System. The Royal Australian Air Force has committed to buy three of those systems for experimentation under its Loyal Wingman Advanced Development Program.
General Atomics and Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works each plan to offer their own aircraft proposals, according to Air Force Magazine.
In fiscal 2021, the Air Force intends to spend $157.6 million across its three “vanguard programs,” which includes the Skyborg effort. The service also included an additional $25 million for Skyborg on its unfunded priorities list, which would allow it to begin integrating UAVs with artificial intelligence software.
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