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IPFS News Link • Drones

The Pentagon is building robotic wingmen to fly alongside fighter planes

• washingtonpost.com By Aaron Gregg

On Tuesday, Kratos Defense and Security Solutions officially announced two new classes of drones designed to function as robotic wingmen for fighter pilots. Development of the UTAP-22 Mako has been funded by the Defense Department's Silicon Valley laboratory, dubbed DIUx. Separately, the company showed off a larger, 30-foot-long drone backed by the Air Force called the XQ-222 Valkyrie, with a range of more than 4,000 nautical miles. Kratos is promoting the pilotless planes at the Paris Air Show next week in preparation for a new round of testing.

Aviation experts say the speed and altitude capacities published by Kratos suggest the drones could fly in tandem with an F-16 or F-35 fighter. The company says it has already successfully flown the drones alongside manned aircraft and that it will soon embark on an advanced round of testing above California's Mojave Desert employing a more sophisticated array of sensing technology to determine just how autonomous the drones can be.


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