Page 15 - ADT JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2023 Online Magazine

it to mimic the performance characteristics of other platforms. He Two systems have been modified in the X-62.
said it also could host a variety of autonomy behaviours, including One is the VISTA simulation system, which allows
those from the Skyborg Autonomy Control System and others pro- the aircraft to mimic the flight characteristics of
vided by third-party industry partners. a different airplane. The other is the system for
the autonomous control of the simulation, which
Skyborg is a Department of the Air Force Vanguard project that enables different autonomous behaviours to fly
has informed the transition of open, modular autonomy to enable the airplane. “When you stitch those two capa-
combat mass using low-cost uncrewed aircraft. These vehicles will bilities together, you get a tactically relevant
be equipped with autonomy systems and will assist human-piloted aircraft that enables rapid test of autonomy
aircraft perform critical missions. capabilities while also proving out the inter-
face requirements necessary for different vehicle
Since March 2021, the Autonomous Aircraft Experimentation team platforms,” Niemiec said.
executed 16 live test events focused on evaluating the Skyborg
Autonomy Control System on the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, UTAP-22 He said Skyborg and other advanced auton-
Mako and General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger uncrewed air vehicles. omy development efforts like DARPA’s (Defence
Early this year, the U.S. Air Force allowed AI to take control of its Advanced Research Projects Agency) Air
X-62. The aircraft was autonomously piloted by artificial intelligence Combat Evolution can leverage the X-62 as
while the U.S. Air Force aviator was on board. A couple of hour later, a surrogate for testing high-risk autonomous
the same aircraft took off with a different AI infrastructure, proving manoeuvres, in parallel with uncrewed aircraft
that it will allow the service to rapidly flight test autonomy software development efforts that are evaluating new
regardless of which organisation or company has developed it. high-risk vehicle model designs. “Because we
have a safety pilot, we can always turn it off, and
“The data generated during these tests, along with feedback pro- improve our throughput for testing autonomy
vided from our user community, show that in order to rapidly develop capability by 10 times,’’ Niemiec said.
and mature tactical autonomy on an appropriate timeline, invest-
ment in, and utilization of, a mature, tactically relevant platform VISTA’s safety trip system also could automat-
is required,” Niemiec said. The X-62 uses a “safety sandbox” that ically disengage the VISTA simulation system
allows integration and flight of modelled air vehicles, control laws when the boundaries of its safety sandbox are
and autonomy capabilities. Unlike the uncrewed aerial vehicles such violated, allowing larger and riskier steps to be
as the Valkyrie, Mako and Avenger, the X-62 has room for a crew taken with no impact on flight safety, he said.
of two, including a pilot who can supervise the autonomy control As part of the transformation into the X-62
system’s performance, similar to the way the automotive industry VISTA, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works designed
tested autonomous driving features. the system for Autonomous Control of the
Simulation, a new system for VISTA. This highly
“Ground and flight testing on X-62 is one of several steps we are flexible computer architecture enables VISTA
taking to build out critical information networks and physical storage to test a wide range of autonomous systems.
infrastructure necessary to enable rapid autonomy development,” “Normally a new control system for an aircraft
Niemiec said. “The goal is to have it flying alongside an uncrewed can take years to implement on an aircraft,” Dr.
platform, with both using tactically-relevant sensors while flying M. Christopher Cotting, USAF Test Pilot School
autonomy behaviours. We’re also building out a robust simulation director of research, said. “With VISTA, a new
environment to capture operator feedback and integrate their inputs control system can be installed and flown in just
into our autonomy development process.” a few months. Once installed, changes can be
made overnight to modify the control system
based on information learned during that day’s
flight test.”

The X-62 VISTA is built to be a technology
demonstrator and risk reduction platform. For
example, the control laws used to fly the Joint
Strike Fighter were first flown on VISTA before
the strike fighter’s first flight, reducing significant
technical and safety risk. “VISTA’s simulation
framework is flexible enough to allow aircraft
designers a chance to fly their aircraft before
it ever leaves the ground,” Cotting said. “While
modern simulation laboratories are getting
much better at simulating aircraft, they still
cannot replicate some of the unknowns of oper-
ating an aircraft in a relevant flight environment.
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