The Air Force last week awarded a $42.5 million contract to continue to research and integrate ways to streamline the interaction between operator and computer on processing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance data. The service awarded the contract to Wright State Applied Research Corp. in Beavercreek, Ohio, for “human-machine teaming,” with the work to occur in a joint contractor-Air Force office at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio. The indefinite-delivery/indefinite quantity contract will be complete by February 2022. The contractors and Air Force officials visit bases that handle ISR data and focus on ways to streamline how analysts process the i?nformation. For example, the group has developed a voice-to-text method for passing along information from real-time video, as opposed to having a dedicated data processor, to more quickly share information, Wright Patterson officials told Air Force Magazine.
When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Air Force Gen. Dan Caine described the 150 aircraft used in Operation Absolute Resolve, the mission to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he referenced many by name, including the F-35 and F-22 fighters and B-1 bomber. Not specified, however, were “remotely piloted drones,” among them a secretive aircraft spotted and photographed returning to Puerto…

