Hivemind and UAVs flew together for the first time in the USA
While the US Air Force's CCA program made a joint flight with Hivemind software for the first time, Baykar KIZILELMA also completed similar autonomous and arm flight tests.
Quick Look
- UAVs in the US Air Force's CCA program flew and performed combat maneuvers with Shield's Hivemind software for the first time.
- Similarly, Baykar's KIZILELMA unmanned warplane also performed autonomous arm flight and target detection tests in Türkiye.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
The US Air Force Cooperative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program and Türkiye's unmanned combat aircraft KIZILELMA are developing autonomous swarm flight technologies.
Multiple UAVs in the U.S. Air Force's Cooperative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program flew together with Hivemind software for the first time on October 26. The vehicles not only flew in formation but also performed coordinated air combat maneuvers. What enabled this was the artificial intelligence-supported software that manages the vehicles.
The statement was made by Shield company, which developed the software. During the testing, the UAVs tested tactics that could be used against beyond-line-of-sight air threats. Thus, the ability of multiple unmanned vehicles to act together and carry out joint tasks was tested. Moreover, this ability is based on managing the entire group, not individual vehicles, with the same software.
Hivemind on 40+ systems
The system used by the US Air Force allows new capabilities to be easily added to different aircraft. In other words, it is not necessary to redesign the vehicle's software for each new capability. Therefore, different vehicles can be managed through the same software layer.
According to Shield, Hivemind; It has been integrated into more than 40 unmanned systems in the air, land, sea and space fields.
Similar tests of RED APPLE
Türkiye's first unmanned combat aircraft, BAYKAR Bayraktar KIZILELMA, also carried out various tests within the scope of autonomous flight with the joint movement of manned and unmanned vehicles. These tests took place with different scenarios.
In one of them, KIZILELMA, which took off from Çorlu, flew for 1 hour and 45 minutes at an altitude of approximately 15 thousand feet. One of the F-16s escorted him, the other assumed the role of target aircraft.
KIZILELMA detected and tracked the F-16 at a distance of 30 miles with the MURAD AESA radar developed by ASELSAN. Then, GÖKDOĞAN made a simulated fire with a beyond-visual air-to-air missile and hit the target in a virtual environment.
In another test, two prototypes, PT3 and PT5, performed autonomous close-arm flight for the first time. Thanks to BAYKAR's smart fleet autonomy algorithms, the two aircraft flew in formation according to each other's location without human intervention.
In the same test, the Air Patrol (CAP) mission was also tried. The two prototypes flew patrols together on a designated route.
Joint flight with M-346
KIZILELMA took off with two M-346 aircraft developed by Italian Leonardo. After autonomous taxiing and takeoff, it joined M-346's arm, then was guided by the pilots of the manned aircraft.
The aircraft moved into different formations upon the commands of the pilots; He performed the maneuvers of changing position, leaving the formation and rejoining autonomously.
Open Questions
- In what operational tasks will Hivemind software be used in the future?
- How will these autonomous capabilities be integrated during the mass production phase of KIZILELMA?
