Saab, Helsing let Gripen fighter fly with AI in charge

COLOGNE, Germany — Swedish warplane maker Saab and Germany-based Helsing sent a Gripen-E combat jet aloft in late May powered by an artificial-intelligence agent that took control of long-range flight maneuvers from the human pilot, the companies announced.

The series of three test flights above the Baltic Sea constitutes the first time that an AI application was in charge of real-world maneuvering, recommending missile shots at a Gripen training aircraft from a distance and evading disadvantageous flight paths that could turn dicey in a closer dogfight, executives told reporters in a June 10 call.

The integration of of Helsing’s Centaur AI pilot into the Gripen took merely six months and was made possible by the jet’s avionics architecture, which separates hardware and software elements for rapid integration of third-party capabilities, said Johan Segertoft, head of Saab’s Gripen business unit.

The combination of Gripen-E with Centaur is market-ready, according to Saab, though an expected amount of additional development limits the utility to “mature” customers of the jet variant at this point.

To prepare for the test flights, engineers let the Centaur AI pilot compete against itself in a Gripen simulator environment, according to Helsing Vice President Antoine Bordes.

According to the company’s math, the prep work produced the equivalent of 50 years of human pilot experience.

The Swedish government is indirectly onboard with the experimentation by way of co-funding it under the Project Beyond program, a key tech marker for the country’s air force in charting a course toward a new warplane after the Gripen.

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

德国科隆——瑞典战机制造商萨博和总部位于德国的赫尔辛公司宣布，5 月下旬，两家公司将一架由人工智能代理驱动的“鹰狮”E 战斗机送上蓝天，该代理从人类飞行员手中接管了远程飞行机动。

高管们在 6 月 10 日的电话会议上告诉记者，在波罗的海上空进行的这三次试飞，标志着人工智能应用程序首次负责现实世界的机动，从远处向鹰狮教练机推荐导弹攻击，并避开在近距离空战中可能变得危险的不利飞行路线。

萨博公司鹰狮战斗机业务部门负责人约翰·塞格托夫表示，将赫尔辛的半人马座人工智能飞行员系统集成到鹰狮战斗机中仅用了六个月时间，这得益于该战斗机的航空电子架构，该架构将硬件和软件元素分离，从而可以快速集成第三方功能。

萨博公司表示，鹰狮E战斗机与半人马座发动机的组合已经可以推向市场，但由于还需要进行大量的额外研发，目前该组合的用途仅限于喷气式战斗机的“成熟”客户。

据赫尔辛公司副总裁安托万·博尔德斯称，为了准备试飞，工程师们让半人马座人工智能飞行员在鹰狮战斗机模拟器环境中与自己竞争。

根据该公司的计算，这些准备工作相当于人类飞行员 50 年的经验。

瑞典政府通过“超越计划”项目间接参与了这项实验，该计划是瑞典空军在“鹰狮”战斗机之后研发新型战机的关键技术标志。

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。