An AI ‘pilot’ developed by Heron Systems triumphed over a U.S.A.F top F-16 pilot in DARPA’s simulated aerial dogfight contest .
“The Alpha Dog-fight Trials have concluded! Congratulations to Heron Systems whose AI agent won the championship among the systems competitors and then beat our F-16 pilot in five straight simulated dogfights in the man-vs-machine finale,” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said in a Twitter statement.
The three-day trials showed AI systems’ ability to maneuver an aircraft in a simple, one-on-one combat scenario and shoot its forward guns in a classic, WWII-style dogfight.
DARPA intends to take the simulator used in the trials, and the simulations, to Nellis AFB, where other Air Force pilots can take a stab at trying to beat AI pilots. Next steps will be to move on to testing the latter’s performance in other types of aerial combat missions.