One of the Air Force's oldest planes became the first military aircraft to fly with artificial intelligence as its copilot on Dec. 15. A U-2 from Beale Air Force Base, Calif., flew with an AI algorithm that controlled the Dragon Lady's sensors and tactical navigation during a local training sortie. The algorithm, developed by Air Combat Command's U-2 Federal Laboratory and named ARTUµ in a reference to the droid that serves as a copilot in the Star Wars film franchise, took over tasks normally handled by the pilot, in turn letting the flier focus on the flying. "ARTUµ's groundbreaking flight culminates our three-year journey to becoming a digital force," said Will Roper, the Air Force's assistant secretary of acquisition, in a release. Failing to realize AI's full potential will mean ceding decision advantage to our adversaries." The laboratory used more than a half-million simulated training missions to build the algorithm, which took over sensors after takeoff. The training scenario focused on a simulated missile strike, with ARTUµ finding enemy missile launchers and the pilot looking for adversary aircraft--both using the U-2's radar, according to the release. "We know that in order to fight and win in a future conflict with a peer adversary, we must have a decisive digital advantage," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr said in the release. "AI will play a critical role in achieving that edge, so I'm incredibly proud of what the team accomplished.

In the battle of artificial intelligence versus a human fighter pilot, it wasn't even close. The artificial intelligence algorithm, developed by Heron Systems, swept a human F-16 pilot in a simulated dogfight 5-0 in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's AlphaDogfight Trials on Aug. 20. The company beat out seven other companies before going head to head with "Banger," a pilot from the District of Columbia Air National Guard and a recent graduate of the Air Force Weapons School's F-16 Weapons Instructor Course. The pilot, whose full name was not provided, is an operational fighter pilot with more than 2,000 hours in the F-16. Banger and Heron Systems' AI fought in five different basic fighter maneuver scenarios with the simulated fight only using the Fighting Falcon's guns, and each time the AI was able to out maneuver and take out Banger.

Faced with a congressional mandate to test its GPS system for cyber vulnerabilities, the Air Force commissioned a digital replica of the satellites and then asked contractors to hack the system. The use of "digital twins" is expanding from modelling in conventional simulators to include testing of emerging technologies and systems, predicting engine performance, or training automated systems to fly a plane. With GPS, Booz Allen Hamilton built the SatSim twin for Lockheed Martin's Block IIR GPS satellite for the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), in El Segundo, Calif. "The satellite itself was on orbit," BAH Vice President Kevin Coggins told Air Force Magazine. "So we built this digital model … and then we went looking for vulnerabilities. We did [penetration] testing and we saw what we could discover."

Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper said March 11 the Air Force is still working on promising research despite a largely stagnant science and technology budget request for fiscal 2021 that is worrying some lawmakers. As the U.S. looks to develop advanced military systems like improved hypersonic weapons and enabling technologies like artificial intelligence faster than Russia and China, Roper lamented that the service's research fund lost ground to more pressing priorities. Nuclear modernization, joint all-domain command and control, and the effort to stand up a Space Force pulled money and resources away from basic research in the 2021 request released last month. "Sometimes the innovation voices did not win at budget closeout," Roper said. "[There are] a lot of things on the Air Force's plate … and unfortunately when we had to make the budget balance, we had to look for areas to take risk."

The Defense Department has adopted a series of ethical principles intended to guide the development and use of artificial intelligence on and off the battlefield, including taking "deliberate steps to minimize unintended bias" and ensuring the ability to "deactivate" systems that aren't behaving as expected. The principles are based on the recommendations of the Defense Innovation Board, which spent 15 months consulting with AI experts in industry, government, and academia, according to a Feb. 24 DOD release. The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center will coordinate the implementation of these principles across the department. "The United States, together with our allies and partners, must accelerate the adoption of AI and lead in its national security applications to maintain our strategic position, prevail on future battlefields, and safeguard the rules-based international order," Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in a release. "AI technology will change much about the battlefield of the future, but nothing will change America's steadfast commitment to responsible and lawful behavior."