Army Night Stalker Chinook Teamed Up With Bomb-Slinging Drone In Complex AI-Enabled Test [2/3] - GBU-69 B Small Glide Munition falls onto a target during a test.png (1/1)

more at
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...i-enabled-test

Members of the U.S. Army's elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment
recently took part in a test at the U.S. Navy's Naval Air Weapons Station China
Lake. Personnel flying onboard an MH-47 Chinook special operations transport
helicopter directly controlled an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone, which then launched a
GBU-69/B Small Glide Munition at a target. Other individuals on the ground then
redirected the small glide bomb to another target mid-flight. Altogether, this
single experiment offered a window into U.S. military advances in
manned-unmanned teaming, networked munitions, and artificial intelligence.

U.S. Army Brigadier General Walter Rugen, the director of the Future Vertical
Lift Cross-Functional Team within the service's new Futures Command, first
disclosed the test at the Association of the U.S. Army's "Hot Topic" forum on
aviation on Sept. 5, 2019. The experiment itself had occurred at China Lake in
California on Aug. 28, 2019.

"We really worked hard on our unmanned systems, our architecture, our
automation, and our interfaces up at China Lake against a real threat," Rugen
explained. The officer added that his team at Futures Command is heavily
focused, in general, on efforts to "weld the air-ground team tighter and tighter
into a pretty solid punch for any potential enemy."

Rugen offered limited details about the test scenario, such as what the final
assigned target was or what it was supposed to represent, or the overall
simulated threat environment. The original target was a surrogate surface-to-air
missile system in a mock urban setting, according to Defense News.

The test was reportedly the first time a Gray Eagle had launched a Dynetics
GBU-69/B, an increasingly important weapon in the U.S. special operations
community's arsenal. This 60-pound class small glide bomb is already in service
on the U.S. Air Force's AC-130W Stinger II and AC-130J Ghostrider gunships.
Rugen also disclosed that the individual on the MH-47 in control of the MQ-1C
directed the drone to fire its munition at the target using a tablet device. It
is not clear how long the two aircraft were working directly together.



more at
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...i-enabled-test



*