The autonomous wingman

For more than a century, combat aircraft have been built around a human pilot. The Collaborative Combat Aircraft program is challenging that assumption by pursuing a new class of uncrewed aircraft designed to operate alongside crewed fighters.

Northrop Grumman’s YFQ-48A is part of this emerging generation of autonomous aircraft. Rather than replacing the pilot, the concept is to give that pilot additional machines capable of performing specialized missions.

One aircraft could provide additional sensors. Another could carry weapons. Another could support electronic warfare or act as a decoy. Instead of asking what one fighter can accomplish, commanders can begin thinking about what a group of connected aircraft can accomplish together.

That changes the role of the pilot as well. Instead of manually controlling every movement of a single aircraft, future pilots could supervise autonomous teammates, assign objectives and intervene when human judgment is required.

The most important technology may ultimately be hidden inside the aircraft. Autonomy software must allow these systems to navigate, interpret their surroundings and respond to changing conditions without requiring constant human input.

Companies across the defense industry are approaching this problem from different directions. Shield AI is developing autonomous systems through its Hivemind platform, while Anduril is building software designed to connect autonomous systems across different domains.

For Northrop Grumman, the challenge is integrating autonomy into an aircraft that can operate as part of a larger combat network. The goal is not simply an aircraft that can fly itself. It is an aircraft that can contribute to a mission alongside humans and other machines.