A T-7 trainer, featured in promotional material from Boeing. (Boeing)
AFA 2022 — A new partnership between Boeing and Red 6 could bring augmented reality to the F-15EX and T-7 trainer, allowing human pilots to encounter virtual wingmen and enemies while actually flying in their aircraft.
Under a joint agreement announced Tuesday night at the Air Force Association’s annual conference, Boeing and Red 6 — a California-based defense startup — will work together to integrate Red 6’s technology onboard Boeing’s T-7 and F-15EX.
“We’re going to start by integrating some Red 6 hardware on one of our test and chaser aircraft in St. Louis,” said Dan Gillian, vice president of US government business for Boeing Global Services. “We’re going to start that next month with the TA-4. We’re going to learn how to work together with an eye towards integration on platforms like T-7 and F-15EX down the road.”
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There is no target date currently associated with integrating Red 6’s technology with the T-7 and F-15EX, he said, but the information learned during the initial tests will inform how Boeing moves forward with additional internal research and development funding.
Boeing plans to experiment with two Red 6 products: the Advanced Tactical Augmented Reality System (ATARS), and Augmented Reality Command and Analytic Data Environment (ARCADE)
ATARS is the system currently under development that is meant to let human pilots experience augmented reality elements while flying a real aircraft, allowing the pilot to rehearse aerial refueling with a virtual tanker or fight against virtual versions of Chinese fighters. The pilot wears a helmet outfitted with an augmented reality headset, which projects virtual images into the physical environment that the pilot can see out the window.
Meanwhile, ARCADE uses “real-time 3D visualizations” to help pilots visualize sorties during the mission planning or debrief stages.
Together, the two technologies could lay the foundation of a pilot training metaverse that is continually active and evolving, said Daniel Robinson, founder and CEO of Red 6. “It means we can start to look at things like campaign-level training over two to three week periods” with pilots inheriting the consequences of actions taken during previous missions and having to respond to a virtual adversary that may also be learning and adapting.
Boeing is the first fighter manufacturer to partner with Red 6, which is working with the US Air Force on to integrate its ATARS system with the T-38 trainer, the precursor to the T-7 used to teach basic fighter maneuvers to fighter pilots before they move on to operational jets like the F-15, F-15, F-22 or F-35.
Currently, Red 6 is in a “manufacturing phase” as it ruggedizes its hardware modules, Robinson said. That work will be finished by the end of the year and delivered to the Air Force in 2023.
