KAI and Saab to independently explore AI-piloted fighter concepts
December 4, 2024
South Korea’s KAI intends to develop an AI initiative (termed ‘K-AI pilot’) in conjunction with its FA-50 light combat aircraft, with the project to explore autonomous fight capabilities by 2026. As KAI’s head of AI research Lim Seong-shin explained in a presentation, the focus will then shift to “semi-autonomous” formation flying and combat manoeuvring.
“The concept of a fighter jet is evolving from a single manned platform to a network of sensors and complex weapon systems integrating both manned and unmanned elements,” commented Lim. Work to develop and potentially integrate an uncrewed system into existing assets is indicative of ongoing attention OEMs around the world are paying to the direction of future air combat.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s Saab has also entered into a strategic partnership with AI-based software developer Helsing to integrate its technology into the JAS Gripen E multirole combat aircraft via ‘Project Beyond’. Announced at the International Fighter Conference in Berlin last month, Helsing’s AI agent will “fly the Gripen in demonstration flights in an air-to-air beyond visual range combat scenario,” explained its developer, citing “an abbreviated timeline” for the forthcoming flights.
“When we are talking about deploying [Helsing’s] software in our aircraft… we are not talking about a separate computer. We are talking about something we are dropping into the heart of Gripen – utilising all the data that we have and fuelling that software in the actual Gripen E, not a test aircraft,” added Saab’s vice president and head of business unit Gripen Johan Segertoft.
During a press briefing earlier this year, when head of Saab’s advanced programmes business unit Peter Nilsson revealed the first details of its Future Concept Air System study (‘KFS’), Nilsson added that incremental updates to Sweden’s indigenous fighter jet may also benefit from future concept initiatives. Alluding to the potential of autonomous integration, he highlighted: “Everything an unmanned platform needs, there’s no pilot who will say no to that capability”.
Last month, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works (in partnership with Lockheed Martin’s Demonstrations and Prototypes Organization and the University of Iowa’s Operator Performance Laboratory) also showcased a crewed-uncrewed teaming mission, employing an airborne L-39 ‘battle manager’ to assign targets to two AI-controlled L-29s.
This mission – the third test of its type and the first to include a ‘real-time’ human battle manager – built on previous experiments exploring AI-controlled air-to-ground jamming and geolocation. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works vice president and general manager John Clark described the work as “foundational for the future of air combat, where a family of crewed and uncrewed systems will work together to execute complex missions”.
