Pentagon Bolsters Autonomous Aircraft Push

The Pentagon is expanding on some of its flagship initiatives to field a diverse set of new autonomous systems quickly and in greater numbers, signaling a sense of urgency to scale up equipment inventories.

The latest move also aims to familiarize the U.S. military with a range of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS)—from small, loitering munitions to advanced combat designs. The U.S. Air Force said it would give more heft to its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) project to field advanced uncrewed fighters, while Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks disclosed another round of projects for the Replicator initiative, aimed at quickly bringing on autonomous systems.

• Small, attritable drones show value on the battlefield
• Replicator 1.2 includes undisclosed low-cost, long-range strike capabilities

While both projects have roots in the Biden administration, they also may have support in a second Donald Trump term. President-elect Trump repeatedly has expressed interest for the U.S. to build up weapons stockpiles, highlighting “robotics and autonomy” as top spending priorities.

The Air Force recently boosted the order for the first batch of CCA prototypes to equip a newly established experimental operations unit, acquisition chief Andrew Hunter said at the Defense One State of Defense Business event in Washington on Nov. 13. The service selected Anduril and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI) for CCA Increment 1 prototypes in April.

The top-up order is supposed to allow the experimental operations unit to do its work “using real assets,” Hunter said. Hunter declined to disclose quantities or prices for the orders, citing Air Force security rules.

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2024 budget funded the formation of the experimental unit to focus on introducing autonomous aircraft into Air Force operations, including training the autonomy algorithms that are being developed separately from the prototype aircraft.

“The additional buy for the Air Force helps ensure that warfighters will have ample opportunity for experimentation to support operational fielding before the end of the decade,” Diem Salmon, Anduril vice president of air dominance and strike, said at the Mitchell Institute Airpower Futures Forum in Arlington, Virginia, Nov. 13.

After declining to comment directly on the announcement, GA-ASI spokesman C. Mark Brinkley noted that “there is so much more to integrating CCAs into the fight than simply building the aircraft,” as the service must build confidence in the systems as well as develop doctrine, tactics and procedures. “The experimental operations unit offers a great opportunity for the Air Force to get a head start on all of those pieces of the puzzle,” Brinkley said, adding that “supplying them with actual CCAs is an important step to that.”

The Air Force also announced a development milestone for both CCA companies. The Anduril Fury and GA-ASI Gambit completed their critical design reviews in October, said Col. Timothy Helfrich, senior materiel leader of Air Force Materiel Command’s advanced aircraft division. Both vehicles are due to fly in 2025.

To keep the program on pace, the Air Force is refraining from adding features that could delay progress, Helfrich said at the Mitchell event. Those features could find their way into the Increment 2 prototypes, as the Air Force is working on those requirements. “We are danger-close to getting started in earnest” for Increment 2, Helfrich said.

The same day, the Pentagon said it is funding new systems for the Air Force, Army and Marine Corps as part of the Replicator 1.2 round that aims to deliver these systems by August.

The Air Force should receive a low-cost cruise missile developed through the service’s collaboration with the Defense Innovation Unit under the Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV) program. The project sponsors said in June that they had awarded contracts to Anduril, Integrated Solutions for Systems Inc., Leidos Dynetics and Zone 5 Technologies to conduct initial flight demonstrations. The most promising of those will move to production.

The Defense Innovation Unit said it is targeting a range of about 500 mi. at high subsonic speed. The Air Force has put a $150,000-per-unit cost on the missile if ordered in bulk. The program is also called “Franklin,” a reference to singer Aretha Franklin and her hit “Respect” because the low-cost missile would demand as much respect from air defenses as a high-end, expensive missile.

“The ETV’s modular design and open system architecture make it an ideal platform for program offices to test out new capabilities at the subsystem level, reducing risk and demonstrating various options for weapon employment,” Air Force Vice Chief Gen. James Slife said in an announcement.

It remains unclear how the Air Force’s combat aircraft fleet will employ the ETV. If added onto a fighter or bomber, the process of integrating the weapon into the onboard mission systems, completing airworthiness certification and passing operational testing could still take months or years. Another route could bypass that integration process by loading the ETV munitions onto pallets, which then could be air-dropped by transports such as Lockheed Martin C-130s or Boeing C-17s.

The Army’s share of Replicator 1.2 focuses on its company-level small UAS, which include the Anduril Ghost-X and the Performance Drone Works C100.

“Ukraine has demonstrated the value of small, attritable drones on the battlefield,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George said in an announcement. The Replicator effort will allow troops “to rapidly experiment, learn and innovate with these systems,” he said, suggesting a sense of urgency. “The advancement of battlefield technology requires us to innovate faster than ever before.”

The Replicator effort also is providing backing to the Marine Corps Organic Precision Fires program, which equips rifle squads and platoons with weapons that can engage targets beyond the reach of smaller arms.

The new funding round will allow the service to add Anduril Altius-600 loitering attack munitions to the program to augment the AeroVironment Switchblade 600 that was selected this year. The Pentagon previously ordered both munitions for delivery to Ukraine, where they have been used extensively.

“Replicator is helping Marines experiment with a portfolio of systems that deliver organic, loitering, beyond-line-of-sight precision strike capability,” the Marine Corps commandant, Gen. Eric Smith, said in a statement. “Expanded experimentation with these systems will inform future Organic Precision Fires efforts and enable refinement of our Force Design, concepts and doctrine.”

The latest Replicator awards also focus on expanding the communications and autonomy capabilities of each of the munitions.

“Tranche 2 includes what we’re calling the integrated enablers from replicator,” said Aditi Kumar, deputy director for strategy, policy and national security partnerships at the Defense Innovation Unit.

“This is the primarily software backbone that will ensure that we have assured communications in contested environments and that we’re augmenting the systems that we’re procuring with enhanced levels of autonomy and collaborative autonomy,” Kumar said at the State of Defense Business event.

Ultimately, these enablers would allow large quantities of these munitions to collaborate during a mission. “For example, you could have the aerial system identify a target and communicate that to a maritime system that is better placed to prosecute that target,” Kumar said.

Replicator 1.2 also includes undisclosed low-cost, long-range strike capabilities and maritime uncrewed systems.

Hicks, who has been driving the Replicator initiative to field equipment more quickly and to work with a new set of suppliers, said the effort is delivering results after launching little more than a year ago.

“We are creating opportunities for a broad range of traditional and nontraditional defense and technology companies, including system vendors, component manufacturers and software developers, to deliver critical capabilities that our warfighters need, and we are building the capability to do that again and again,” she said.