In a first, Avenger drone flies autonomously with Low Earth Orbit SATCOM aid
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems claims to successfully demonstrate the use of artificially intelligence pilots to control its MQ-20 Avenger uncrewed aircraft during ‘live air combat maneuvers.’ Such a demonstration would mark another advancement in the use of AI-enabled autonomous systems technologies in uncrewed systems.
The company performed the demonstration while featuring its ‘live, virtual, constructive (LVC) collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) ecosystem’ in which human and AI pilots coordinate with one another through low-earth orbit satellite communications. The AI agents were running algorithms governed by reinforcement learning while receiving data inputs from human pilots. ‘The agents’ performance data were collected, retrained, and redeployed in a matter of minutes.’