DISPATCHES FROM THE FRONT LINE OF AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY
WINGMAN DRONE COULD LAUNCH ITS OWN ROBOTIC SWARM
CALIFORNIA DRONE-MAKER KRATOS is adding launchers to its highspeed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designs.
The UAVs’ tube-style launchers could deploy small drones that themselves double as guided missiles, Kratos stated. In other words, the big drones could launch other, smaller — and expendable — drones.
The launchers are a logical addition as Kratos works with the US Air Force to develop a fighterlike ‘wingman’ UAV that the flying branch wants to accompany manned aircraft into combat. Kratos’s stealthy, 28ft-long XQ-58 Valkyrie, a product of the Air Force’s Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology (LCAAT) program, is the vehicle component of the air force’s wingmandrone system.
The jet-powered XQ-58 demonstrator flew for the first time over Yuma, Arizona on March 5, 2019.
The USAF’s related Skyborg program, meanwhile, is developing the artificial intelligence-based control systems to allow human operators in the air or on the ground to direct the drones in flight.
‘Skyborg is a vessel for AI technologies that could range from rather simple algorithms to fly the aircraft and control them in airspace to …
