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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military.
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Northrop Grumman Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense technology company. With 90,000 employees and an annual revenue in excess of $30 billion, it is one of the world's largest weapons manufacturers and military technology providers. The firm ranks No. 101 on the 2022 Fortune 500 list of America's largest corporations.
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The EADS/Northrop Grumman KC-45 was a proposed aerial refueling tanker aircraft based on the Airbus A330 MRTT. The United States Air Force (USAF) had ordered 179 KC-45As in the first stage of replacing the aging Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker tankers currently in service. However, the contest was reopened in July 2008, after Boeing's protest of the award was upheld. In response to the new contest, on 8 March 2010, Northrop Grumman announced it was abandoning its bid for the new contract, with its CEO stating that the revised bid requirement favoured Boeing. On 20 April 2010, EADS announced it was re-entering the competition and entered a bid with the KC-45. Eventually, the USAF selected the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus.
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The Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie is an experimental stealthy unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed and built by Kratos Defense & Security Solutions for the United States Air Force Low Cost Attritable Strike Demonstrator (LCASD) program, under the USAF Research Laboratory’s Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology (LCAAT) project portfolio. It was initially designated the XQ-222. The Valkyrie successfully completed its first flight on 5 March 2019 at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona.
The Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, previously known as the Boeing Airpower Teaming System (ATS) and the Loyal Wingman project, is a stealth, multirole, unmanned aerial vehicle in development by Boeing Australia for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). It is designed as a force multiplier aircraft capable of flying alongside manned aircraft for support and performing autonomous missions independently using artificial intelligence.
In artificial intelligence (AI), collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) are robotic loyal wingmen such as the Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat, Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, General Dynamics X-62 VISTA, or the entrants in the Skyborg Vanguard program. The uncrewed CCAs represent a class of aircraft which are meant to collaborate with the crewed Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft.
References
- ↑ "Skyborg: the US Air Force's future AI fleet". Airforce Technology. 2019-08-28. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
- ↑ "4 Companies Move Forward in Skyborg Competition". Air Force Magazine. 2020-07-24. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
- ↑ Insinna, Valerie (2020-07-23). "Four companies win contracts to build the Air Force's Skyborg drone". Defense News. Retrieved 2020-08-21.
- ↑ "Contracts for September 29, 2020". U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
- ↑ "Contracts for December 21, 2020". U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
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