Boeing is partnering with Australia’s Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre (DCRC) to develop advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
Embedding machine learning techniques on-board will help unmanned systems better understand and react to threat environments.
“Over the next 12 months, Boeing Australia will design and test cognitive AI algorithms to enable sensing under anti-access conditions and to navigate and conduct enhanced tactics in denied environments,” Shane Arnott, director of Phantom Works International, said.
Boeing Australia’s first innovation project with the DCRC will examine an unmanned system’s route planning, location, and identification of objects and the platform’s subsequent behavioural response.
The DCRC for Trusted Autonomous Systems was announced by the Government in 2017 to support the rapid creation and transition of industry-led trustworthy smart-machine technologies through the innovation ecosystem to the ADF.
“Together with Boeing, we are investing in advanced technology that can have real game-changing product outcomes for our military to match the evolving threats and achieve a sustainable autonomous industry for Australia,” Professor Jason Scholz, chief executive officer of the DCRC for Trusted Autonomous Systems, said.
Boeing will work with Australian university partners and Brisbane-based supplier RF Designs to flight-test and evaluate the capability with autonomous high performance jets.
ADM Comment: The technology developed through this partnership is likely a part of the Loyal Wingman project, which is taking an experimental approach to understanding how an autonomous air vehicle can interact with manned platforms and countermeasures in a high-end fight. The platform is set to undertake test flights next year.