U-2 Spy Plane With AI Equipped ARTUµ Co-Pilot

New technology emerged to tackle the need to have a co-pilot on U-2 Spy Plane. Before this any U-2 spy plane needs to have 2 man operating it. One's is piloting it while the others will manage all the electronics and reconnaissance services.

Now.. things have changes.

The United States Air Force just hit a major milestone involving the intersection of artificial intelligence and human-controlled flight. A mission yesterday with a U-2 spy plane out of California saw an onboard AI system working together with a pilot. 

The Air Force said in a statement that this partnership represents the very first moment that AI has served as “a working aircrew member onboard a military aircraft.” The AI system, which the Air Force calls ARTUµ, handled the operation of a sensor, while the pilot did other duties. “During this flight, ARTUµ was responsible for sensor employment and tactical navigation, while the pilot flew the aircraft and coordinated with the AI on sensor operation,” the Air Force said. 

The military notes that the AI that controlled the sensor had trained by learning from data that represented more than 500,000 “simulated training iterations.” Its goal was to look for missile launchers using the radar.

U-2 spy planes are known as complex crafts to fly—the aviators within them must wear spacesuits—and if the AI performed well, it would mean that a busy pilot would have fewer tasks to do while operating the high-altitude, intelligence-gathering aircraft.