General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Tests AI-Driven Avenger Drones

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) has announced that on October 28, the firm tested one of its artificial intelligence (AI) driven Avenger drones. The release did not indicate where the test took place but it did emphasize that the drones were built in cooperation with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). GA-ASI further noted that it used a government-supplied Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) autonomy engine, which was installed on the Avenger drone, in order to support air-to-air targeting missions. CODE was developed by DARPA to deal with the scalability and cost-effectiveness issues concerning unmanned aircraft systems operations. "DARPA's CODE program aims to overcome these limitations with new algorithms and software for existing unmanned aircraft that would extend mission capabilities and improve U.S. forces' ability to conduct operations in denied or contested airspace," read the project's webpage.