An autonomous Blackhawk just successfully completed its first mock rescue mission
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Helicopter crews in war time are put at high risk during search and rescue operations but now an autonomous Blackhawk could see pilots grounded. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech and...
5G and Smart City sensor networks could give autonomous vehicles collective perception
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Vehicles and other city infrastructure could share information about their environments and end up with collective perception to make the streets safer. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, read about exponential tech and trends, connect, watch...
USAF pumps $60m into Quarterhorse their future 4,000mph autonomous aircraft
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future aircraft are fast, and autonomous, and also fast… really fast. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Future aircraft will be fast – very fast – and some of them...
The world’s first active duty military AI co-pilot just got its next mission
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF First AI helped control aircraft avionics, then it took on missions, and it won’t be soon before it replaces military pilots altogether. Love the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, future proof yourself with courses from XPotential University, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Recently Artificial Intelligence (AI)...
USAF topguns will fight against AI drones in 2021 as era of autonomous warfare nears
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future of air combat will increasingly fought by autonomous systems, not human pilots, and the race to create those systems has already begun. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. I’ve been talking about the rise of fully...
DARPA funds programs to get black box AI’s to explain their decisions
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI continues to be weaponised by military powers, getting it to explain its decision making, and actions, will be crucial, and it’s not going to be an easy task to achieve. Intelligence agents and military operatives may come to rely heavily on Machine...
DARPA hands the world’s first fully autonomous drone warship to the US Navy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Sea Hunter is the world’s first fully autonomous warship, and it’s just passed trials – next stop official duty. After just under a year at sea DARPA has finally completed the sea trials of the world’s first fully autonomous warship, Sea Hunter, a...
The USAF turned an F-16 fighter jet into the world’s most advanced drone
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Militaries around the world are weaponising AI and drones to create semi, or fully, autonomous weapons platforms and the pace of development is accelerating. Earlier this week the US Air Force (USAF) announced that it has managed to turn an F-16 fighter jet into...
The US Army tests convoys of autonomous trucks in Michigan
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF US military convoys are often seen as soft targets in war zones around the world and that puts US service men and women at risk, autonomous trucks take more soldiers out of the firing line. Late last month the US Army tested its latest driverless...
US Navy protects Chesapeake Bay with swarms of its latest robotic boats
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Military leaders are increasingly using autonomous drones, robots and platforms to assess, defend and engage targets around the world. The US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) recently showed off the progress it’s making in the area of robotic warfare with a demonstration of...
US Navy’s autonomous submarine hunter begins operational trials
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many navies around the world are going all in on autonomous boats, ships and platforms, the Sea Hunter will be the first of many such systems that enter service after 2017. Main contractor Leidos has announced that it is starting operational trials of the...
US Navy stands up the worlds first fully autonomous drone squadron
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF When you look across the spectrum of military developments it is clear that nation states are now committed to creating fully autonomous military platforms, the only question left to answer is when will they make their own “Kill” decisions. The time when the US...
US Navy’s future supersonic submarines will command swarms of autonomous drones
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Americas submarines of the future will command huge swarms of autonomous drones and travel at supersonic speeds, changing the nature of warfare, and balance of power. In the next two decades the US is going to be putting its next generation of subs into...
New US Navy launcher fires swarms of autonomous drones into the sky
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The US Navy launches drone swarms to give its adversaries a new headache to deal with. Following on from a DARPA’s announcement earlier this year about creating a new “Drone Swarm” program with Lockheed, the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) have announced that they...
Capable of full autonomy, we go inside the stealth destroyer USN Zumwalt
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Invisible, smart, deadly and loaded with AI – the new autonomous-capable USS Zumwalt. The look of the new 600 foot, $4 Billion USN destroyer Zumwalt, official designation DDG-1000, is easy to explain. The ship is designed to be stealthy and all of its sharp...
World first as Lockheeds autonomous submarine launches an autonomous drone
Lockheed Martin just successfully tested the US Military’s next generation “Kill Chain” Following hot on the heels of the US Navy’s first successful tests of their autonomous warship, the Sea Hunter, during the three day Annual Navy Technology Exercise (ANTX) that took place last month in Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay,...
The world’s first fully autonomous warship aces sea trials
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The US Navy’s trials of their first autonomous warship platform have been wildly successful. The US Navy’s new unarmed Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) Sea Hunter has completed its first round of sea trials and it aced all of its tests for speed, manoeuvrability,...
DARPA pushes autonomous Mach 20 drone program underground
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The race for hypersonic speed has never been hotter. In August 2011 a superfast unmanned military drone, the Falcon HTV-2 (Force Application and Launch from the Continental US Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2) travelling at 20 times the speed of sound, or 13,000 miles per hour, managed to...
America launches the worlds first fully autonomous submarine hunter
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We are entering the age of fully autonomous warfare and inevitably, one day, humans will not be in the loop The US military have launched their first experimental, fully autonomous self-driving warship, dubbed Sea Hunter, and representing a major advance in robotic warfare, which...
