The Air Force’s military deputy for acquisition, Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, speaking at a Washington industry symposium this week, entreated industry and government representatives for help in achieving for unmanned aerial vehicles an equivalent level of safety as manned platforms have operating in a peacetime airspace environment. Currently, manned aircraft get that last—and vital—measure of added safety from the eyeballs of their pilots. “That needs to be replaced,” said Hoffman, adding that is “will take technology in order to do it.” Collision avoidance sensors need more development for smaller aircraft. Hoffman noted, too, that the addition of the UAV mission to more and more Air National Guard and Reserve forces means some UAV training will be done in airspace over more populated areas. And, he said that same technology would benefit UAV operations in combat arenas, where today whole sections of airspace must be blocked off to accommodate the UAV explosion.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
