First Engagement of AI on a Tactical Aircraft

The one-of-a-kind VISTA X-62 training aircraft, developed by the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and Calspan Corp for the USAF Test Pilot School (TPS) at Edwards AFB, CA, is “changing the face of air power,” according to a Lockheed Martin release on 13 February.

VISTA (Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft) was recently flown by an AI agent for over 17 hours during tests in December, marking the first occasion on which AI was engaged on a tactical aircraft. The system is a modified F-16D Block 30 Peace Marble Il aircraft featuring Block 40 avionics. Built with an open systems architecture, the aircraft features software allowing it to mimic other aircraft. “VISTA will allow us to parallelize the development and test of cutting-edge artificial intelligence techniques with new uncrewed vehicle designs,” explained Dr M Christopher Cotting, Director of Research for the TPS. “This approach, combined with focused testing on new vehicle systems as they are produced, will rapidly mature autonomy for uncrewed platforms and allow us to deliver tactically relevant capability”.

The USAF recently upgraded the system to include an updated VISTA Simulation System (VSS) provided by Calspan, and Lockheed Martin’s Model Following Algorithm (MFA), and System for Autonomous Control of the Simulation (SACS). The SACS and MFA systems combined provide new capabilities to VISTA, so it can be used to conduct advanced flight test experiments emphasising autonomy and AI. At the heart of SACS lies the Skunk Works’ Enterprise-wide Open Systems Architecture, which powers the Enterprise Mission Computer version 2, aka the ‘Einstein Box’.