AFRL Inks Contract With BAE Systems For New Air Ops Planning Tools

BAE Systems says it has received a contract from the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to develop an interactive video game, incorporating artificial intelligence, to enhance air operations planning.

The $17 million deal covers the introduction of AI into an interactive game environment to provide air operations planners with new tools to accelerate the planning of complex air operations.

Under the Technical Area 2, Plan Gaming and Outcome Analysis contract, BAE Systems FAST Labs research and development organization and subcontractors Uncharted Software and Kestrel Institute will develop the ability to rapidly create and review multiple plans and select the best one, the company said.

Drag-and-drop video game-type interactions would cut the time needed to make incremental adjustments from hours to minutes, BAE officials said.

The interactive user interface will allow planners to rapidly explore plausible courses of action, enabling more options to be reviewed in a shorter amount of time.