Boeing is testing a drone fleet

The five, so far only smaller, autonomous flying structures have made a few laps in Australia, sharing essential information as a swarm of bees thanks to artificial intelligence.

They work on computer support for human pilots at Boeing. The Airpower Teaming System has reached an important milestone recently with the successful bursting of a handful of drones in constant communication with each other in Australia.

Intelligent reg

According to the test report, the five small jet aircraft passed the test thanks to the advanced autonomous technology. Refinement of on-board command and control functions is made possible by data sharing, which enables aircraft to learn and adapt to conditions in real time.

The head of Phantom Works, the aircraft manufacturer’s development department responsible for the project, highlighted the importance of the possibilities of artificial intelligence in a statement. MI, however, is not planned to trigger human pilots in the air even in the foreseeable future, but rather to rely on the algorithm as a significant supporting force, as it would coordinate the accompanying drones to support the human actor leading the mission.

Of course, for the time being, this will not be tomorrow either, as the current test was not done with “serious machines”, but with smaller drones about three meters long. In addition, the machines were far from split on the test circuit, as their maximum speed was 270 km / h. The goal, in turn, is to achieve parameters similar to fighter jets. In practice, this will hopefully mean 12-meter drones that can travel up to 3,700 kilometers.

Although it is clearly a development for military purposes, Boeing insists for the time being that it envisions its drones in a non-offensive role. Rather, the role of the machines would be to effectively support information acquisition, surveillance operations, and reconnaissance by having multiple machines working to achieve the set goals in addition to the single human pilot deployed during the mission.

The drone war is imminent

Regardless, the topic of drones flying with weapons, also suitable for active combat, is ample on the table. In the United States, for example, a special air duel is planned for next summer, where one of the Army’s fighter pilots will have to fight a computer-controlled opponent.

The Skyborg project, which also relies on artificial intelligence, can also be linked to U.S. defense forces, which bears many similarities to Boeing’s vision. It is planned that by 2023, an unmanned aircraft controlled by an “artificial brain” would be completed. A common element of military developments is that they don’t like to talk about it much. All that is known about the Skyborg concept is that these planes could fly with human pilots to help them complete their missions.

In the UK, on ​​the other hand, they think on a smaller scale. There, however, they had already completed the first drone for use in indoor conflicts, on which two shotguns were applied. However, in the development of the British Army, the machine will not (yet) fire on its own, the fire command can only be issued by the remote control operator.