Skyborg Prototype Demos Set For July 2021

WASHINGTON: The winners in the hard-fought Skyborg contest to develop an autonomous drone to fly in tandem with piloted aircraft in highly contested airspace are Boeing, Kratos and General Atomics.

Deliveries are due no later than May, so that a series of flight experiments can be launched in July, according to this evening’s announcement by Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLMC). The 24-month contracts were as follows: The Boeing Co., for $25.7 million; General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., for $14.3 million; and Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems Inc., for $37.8 million.

“The aim of the Skyborg Vanguard program is to integrate autonomous attritable unmanned air vehicle (UAV) technology with open missions systems to enable manned-unmanned teaming,” the AFRL release explains. The prototype drones will need to be able to integrate with the “Skyborg Autonomous Core System” — i.e. the software ‘brains’ for the drone as well as demonsrating the ability to team with piloted aircraft. The core system was designed by System Design Agent Leidos.

“This award is a major step forward for our game-changing Skyborg capability—this award supporting our operational experimentation is truly where concepts become realities. We will experiment to prove out this technology and to do that we will aggressively test and fly to get this capability into the hands of our warfighters,” said Brig. Gen. Dale White, AFLMC program executive officer for fighters and advanced aircraft. He co-leads the Skyborg program along with Brig. Gen. Heather Pringle, AFRL commander.

According to the AFLMC release, “there will be competition throughout the entire period of performance of these awards. The effort will consist of multiple phases, meant to continue evaluation of the performance of the vendors.”

The service granted the second round of exploratory Skyborg contracts to nine vendors. Those 13 vendors were awarded indefinite delivery/Indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contracts to compete for task orders within a $400 million ceiling for “technology to support a family of systems with capabilities that can range from simple algorithms to autonomous flight controls, and include functions that can accomplish defined tasks or subtasks in a mission,” an AFRL spokesperson told Breaking D at the time.

This means the losers in today’s award — which include defense behemoths Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman — still have a chance down the road of playing a role in the cutting-edge program.

Skyborg is one of three Vanguard programs identified in 2019 as part of the Air Force Science and Technology (S&T) 2030 initiative. These high priority efforts, based on AFRL development and AFLMC rapid acquisition capabilities, are designed to rush game-changing tech to the field.