Northrop Grumman’s partners tout AI software, from AR training to mission planning

WASHINGTON — Northrop Grumman’s AI testbed aircraft is back in the air, and at least half-a-dozen partner companies are readying their autonomy software to install on it. The partners’ software modules range from an augmented reality training system to tactical combat algorithms and even mission planning and analysis, executives from each company told reporters last week at the Air Force Association‘s conference.

The physical centerpiece of the program, the Scaled Composites Model 437 Vanguard jet, took off Sept. 20 for the first time in roughly a year. Most of that time was spent installing Northrop Grumman’s Prism autonomy package, which is designed not only to fly the aircraft but also to accept specialized software modules from any company that conforms to certain common technical standards.

So far, six companies — Red 6, Autonodyne, EpiSci, Merlin Labs, Soar Technology and Shield AI — have publicly announced their participation in Northrop’s flight test program, known overall as Beacon. Beacon includes the Vanguard aircraft, its Prism software, and assorted support systems on the ground.

Red 6 specializes in augmented-reality training for military pilots. Their software populates the real skies with virtual aircraft that a real plane can interact with, both as friends and foes. The Red 6 tech superimposes VR aircraft on the pilot’s field of vision — and feeds realistic data about these unreal planes to the real aircraft’s sensors. That allows a single pilot in a single aircraft to train in scenarios too complex, too expensive, or just too dangerous to try out in real life.

“You can define the terrain, you define the threat, you can define the friendly forces, the electromagnetic spectrum,” said Red 6 Chief Strategy Officer Kevin Fesler, a former Air Force fighter group commander.

Autonodyne is also bringing the ability for the real aircraft to interact with multiple virtual ones. But its software’s initial focus is on coordinating the maneuvers of that entire formation, both its physical and digital elements, “in a tactically optimal way,” said CEO Steve Jacobson.

EpiSci, which was acquired earlier this year by Applied Intuition, is offering autonomy software with a focus on human-machine teaming — the art and science of getting AI and people to work together effectively.

“Getting the reps and sets with human pilots is something that we are very interested in doing,” said EpiSci President Dan Javorsek, a former Air Force squadron commander himself.

Merlin Labs is working with Northrop Grumman’s Beacon program to test “a package of mission autonomy behaviors,” said Merlin General Manager for Tactical Autonomy Chris Gentile. That means Merlin’s tactical algorithms will take in sensor data from the aircraft about its internal functioning and external conditions — augmented, on occasion, by Red 6’s synthetic data about simulated threats and allies — and then tell the aircraft how to react.

“We’re going to show that we can use that to make dynamic, highly effective human or superhuman decisions,” Gentile said.

Soar Technology focuses on “collaborative autonomy,” the ability of multiple systems — both manned and unmanned — to work together towards a common mission. The specific software module they’re bringing to Beacon, said Vice President for Autonomy Jack Zaientz, enables the aircraft to conduct what’s called a Combat Air Patrol. A CAP is a standardized but complex set of actions that requires multiple aircraft to coordinate their movements, get on station, patrol their assigned area, and keep their radars properly aimed to detect incoming threats.

Shield AI is delivering software that can learn and adapt over multiple autonomous missions, said Chief Strategy Officer Ryan Tseng. Its algorithms help the aircraft carry out its mission in flight, he explained, but they also help plan the mission before takeoff and analyze the outcome afterwards, potentially even updating the software and tactics before taking off on the next mission.

“Our focus is … the ability to exercise the full lifecycle of autonomy — from the mission plans, through the mission execution, through the debrief and the learning,” Tseng said.

The Vanguard aircraft still needs a few more test flights before it starts trying out all the partner software, cautioned Northrop President of Aeronautics Tom Jones. The Sept. 20 flight had the full Prism package up and running, he said, but not in control — that was still in the hands of a human test pilot. The company has five more such test flights before it flips the switch and lets Prism take full control, which should happen by the end of the year.

Then, once Prism is thoroughly proven, the partners can start plugging their software into it for flight tests. The plan is for multiple partners’ modules to be running at the same time during the same flight, executives said, allowing for complex interactions that are more than the sum of the individual parts.