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Lockheed Martin has successfully demonstrated an autonomous F-16

While Uber and Google are fussing over autonomous cars, Lockheed Martin has been creating an autonomous fighter jet.

Together with the Air Force Research Laboratory, U.S Air Force Test Pilot School and Calspan Corporation, the aerospace firm demonstrated how an autonomous F-16 could carry out a mission from planning to execution, with no human input.

“The experimental F-16 autonomously flew in formation with a lead aircraft and conducted a ground-attack mission, then automatically rejoined the lead aircraft after the mission was completed,” Lockheed Martin said in a statement.

The potential for this technology in combat scenarios is immense. As Business Insider points out, these autonomous F-16 fighters can act as unmanned “protection” drones if you will, for F35 fighters.

This is accomplished through something the US Air Force calls Open Mission Systems. This allows the F-16 to receive data from a variety of sources that helps it make quick decisions in real time.

“We’ve not only shown how an Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle can perform its mission when things go as planned, but also how it will react and adapt to unforeseen obstacles along the way,” autonomous flight operations engineer at Air Force Research Laboratory, Captain Andrew Petry said in a statement.

Seeing as this was just a demonstration of what an autonomous F-16 is capable of we don’t think there’s cause for fear of rogue machines just yet. Of course, anything can happen.

[Image – Pixabay]

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