For the first time ever, an experimental fighter jet squared off against an F-16 aircraft in an artificial intelligence (AI) – fueled simulated dogfight, the U.S. Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced last week.
The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and the DARPA Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program achieved the first-ever in-air tests of AI algorithms autonomously flying an F-16 against a human-piloted F-16 in within-visual-range combat scenarios – sometimes referred to as “dogfighting.”
The team has been using a modified F-16 known as the X-62A Variable In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft (VISTA) to put machine learning agents through their paces in the skies above Edwards Air Force Base in California. In less than a year, the teams installed the initial live AI agents and demonstrated the first AI versus human aerial combat.
“Beginning in December of 2022, that was the first application of machine learning agents to control the flight path of fighter aircraft,” Col. James Valpiana, commandant of the Air Force Test Pilot School, said in a video statement.
“The potential for autonomous air-to-air combat has been imaginable for decades, but the reality has remained a distant dream … until now,” he added.
More than 100,000 lines of flight-critical software changes were made over time to improve the tools. Then in September 2023, the team took the X-62 and flew it against a live- manned F-16. According to the Air Force, initial flight safety was built up first using defensive maneuvers, before switching to offensive high-aspect nose-to-nose engagements where the dogfighting aircraft got as close as 2,000 feet at 1,200 miles per hour.
Twenty-one test flights were conducted for the project between December 2022 and September 2023.
“We built up in safety using the maneuvers – first defensive, then offensive, then high aspect nose-to-nose engagements where we got as close as 2,000 feet at 1,200 miles per hour,” Lt. Col. Maryann Karlen, deputy commandant of the test pilot school, said in the video.
While the AI-fueled fighter jet dogfight was the primary testing scenario, it was not the end goal, the Air Force explained.
“It’s very easy to look at the X-62A ACE program and see it as under autonomous control, it can dogfight, but that misses the point,” said Bill Gray, the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School’s chief test pilot.
“Dogfighting was the problem to solve so we could start testing autonomous artificial intelligence systems in the air. Every lesson we’re learning applies to every task you could give to an autonomous system,” said Gray.
The Air Force explained that the X-62A VISTA will continue to serve a variety of customers for research while providing key academic lessons for the next generation of test leaders.
