The goal is for AI to automatically analyze refueling operations from cameras mounted on the tankers and provide “hot wash” feedback to the tanker crews.

According to an Air Force Small Business Innovation Research solicitation, the service wants a system that can “leverage advanced computer vision, machine learning, and aviation (flight dynamics) analytics techniques to automatically extract operationally relevant performance metrics from aerial refueling events, quantify deviations from desired flight profiles, and generate actionable post-flight feedback to improve aircrew proficiency, reduce human-factor-driven mishaps, and enhance mission readiness.”

The application deadline is Nov. 25.

The SBIR is focused on the KC-46 tanker, which will feature a remote vision system that will allow operators to remotely operate the refueling boom via cameras and a 3D display. Though the system has been plagued by teething problems, the Air Force says most will soon be resolved.

The system would automatically track the tanker and refueling boom, as well as the receiving aircraft. It would measure a variety of data, including position, velocity, alignment and closure rate, and assess whether they deviate from nominal parameters.

The Air Force hopes an AI-based assessment system will mitigate the biases inherent in human assessment of aerial refueling, which is among the most demanding tasks for aircrew.

“Current aerial refueling training and post-flight assessment processes rely heavily on instructor observation, pilot self-assessment, manual video review, and subjective evaluation of performance,” the SBIR noted.

The system would create visual displays to improve the performance of pilots of the aircraft receiving fuel, such as “graphic AI overlays, heat maps, event timelines, and immersive or interactive debrief environments.” It would also have the potential to integrate with other training systems, including virtual and augmented reality, simulators, mission rehearsal systems, and other computer-based training tools.

The Air Force sees this as a prototype for future AI-based training systems.

“The desired end state is an operationally demonstrated capability ready to implement for at least one type of receiver aircraft and that can support transition into existing aviation training ecosystems and provide a scalable foundation for future AI-enabled aviation performance assessment across the Department of Defense,” the solicitation reads.

The F-22 completed airborne tactical command and in-flight control of a YFQ-44A Fury earlier this month, the Air Force announced.

The fighter jet’s pilot served as an airborne “quarterback” and gave high-level directives to an Anduril-made Fury CCA. The unmanned, semi-autonomous aircraft’s onboard autonomy software interpreted and executed the directives in real time, per the release, performing in-flight maneuvers and simulated combat tasks.

“This achievement demonstrates what is possible when we are aligned with industry on a shared imperative: delivering capability to the warfighter at unprecedented speed,” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in the announcement.

“We are driving urgency into every part of acquisition from rapid integration and flight learning to disciplined assessment, so we can turn promising technology into combat capability at the pace the threat demands,” he continued.

Personnel from the 412th Test Wing, 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron, 309th Software Engineering Group, Experimental Operations Unit, F-22 System Program Office and the CCA Software Autonomy and Teaming Branch collaborated during the demonstration.

The service plans to use data from this event to inform software integration, developmental testing and further CCA concepts, the announcement says.

This test follows other milestones in the CCA development after the service announced its intention to have 500 combat-ready, semi-autonomous systems by 2032, with an overall fleet size of 1,000.

The Anduril-made Fury executed its first live-fire test by conducting an end-to-end, beyond-line-of-sight strike against a simulated target during a live-fire test at Edwards Air Force Base, California, in July.

Alongside Anduril’s CCA, the service has made strides with General Atomics’ FQ-42A Vengeance, which was delivered to Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, last month to continue regular test and evaluation operations.

Anduril has yet to announce which Air Force base will house Fury, but Creech airmen conducted an Agile Combat Employment exercise earlier using the defense company’s aircraft, allowing airmen to complete sorties and build foundational tactics and procedures that will mold how CCA are integrated into the force.

APKWS kits convert unguided 2.75-inch rockets into laser-guided munitions. All four services field them, and the weapon has become a cheaper alternative to air-to-air missiles for shooting down drones.

Congress still has to approve and fund the buy, the department said. BAE said it will increase production while the two sides work out a multiyear contract. Neither side announced the deal’s cost.

The framework also outlines a path to increase output to 35,000 kits a year for U.S. allies. The department said that added capacity will come online as partner nations formally request kits through the Foreign Military Sales program.

“By securing multi-year demand, this agreement keeps production lines running at capacity, provides our forces with interceptor inventory, and flips the cost calculus in the taxpayer’s favor,” Michael Duffey, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said in the announcement.

BAE, which builds the kits in Hudson, New Hampshire, and Austin, Texas, said in February that it had delivered its 100,000th kit.

The 25,000 figure in this framework agreement matches capacity BAE has cited before. A company official said in 2023 that APKWS was in full-rate production with room to grow to 25,000 units a year.

“APKWS delivers proven, reliable and affordable precision at scale to counter evolving threats and ensure our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage,” said Tom Arseneault, president and CEO of BAE Systems Inc.

The Navy’s current five-year APKWS contract with BAE, awarded in August 2025, is worth up to $1.74 billion. It covers up to 55,000 kits for the Navy, the Army and foreign customers, with work expected to be completed by December 2031.

Among allied buyers, Saudi Arabia won State Department approval in July for a possible $1.96 billion package that includes up to 20,000 APKWS kits, split evenly between air-to-air and air-to-ground versions. Italy is also weighing a buy of 5,031 kits for counter-drone defense.

The APKWS agreement is the latest in a series of framework deals the Pentagon has signed this year to boost munitions production.

In January, Lockheed Martin agreed to more than triple production of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement, or PAC-3 MSE, interceptor.

In March, BAE and Lockheed agreed to quadruple production of seekers for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptor. A separate THAAD framework signed in January led to a June contract worth more than $35 billion for the interceptors themselves.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed AUSA attendees at the Project Agincourt panel on Wednesday, sharing that the Pentagon is requesting roughly $50 billion in reconciliation funding to support the push to scale autonomous and robotic systems.

This request is part of an effort to make the technology available in far greater numbers.

The figure is separate from the Pentagon’s fiscal 2027 budget request, which includes $53.6 billion for the Drone Dominance initiative. That request covers $16.9 billion for unmanned-system procurement, $14.4 billion for counter-unmanned systems, $13.5 billion for contested logistics, $4.5 billion for collaborative autonomy and $4.3 billion for institutional systems and personnel. The budget request does not establish that the reconciliation funding Hegseth cited is the same money or that it is dedicated entirely to drone purchases

Hegseth characterized the funding as a one-time investment rather than a recurring annual allocation, intended to accelerate the development and production of autonomous and robotic systems.

“Ultimately we will be dealing with hundreds of thousands of one-way attack systems this year and into the millions in years to come at a pace that this department’s never ever seen before.”

The Defense Secretary said the Pentagon must make it easier for new companies to compete in a defense market long dominated by established contractors and costly platforms. Traditional defense firms remain important, he said, but the department also needs lower-cost systems that can be manufactured at scale.

The Army’s Drone Dominance program offers a concrete measure of that ambition. In a December 2025 announcement, the Army said a $1 billion initiative would fund approximately 340,000 small unmanned aircraft systems for combat units over two years. The service said it expected to deliver tens of thousands of drones in 2026 and hundreds of thousands by 2027.

Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle said the service is broadening access to its programs for companies outside the traditional defense industrial base. The Army, he said, must make room for new entrants while continuing to work with established suppliers.

Telle also described plans to coordinate the Army’s autonomous-systems efforts while distributing capabilities to operational units. The service is developing an approach that incorporates drones, autonomous ground systems, autonomous fires and autonomous lift into future combat operations.

“We have an MOS in the Army, 390A, where warrant officers could keep the speciality and the skills over the duration to teach our soldiers how to do robotics,” Telle added.

Expanding access to Army test ranges is another part of that effort, Telle said. Greater access gives developers more opportunities to test systems and receive feedback from military users. He also described efforts to share lessons across the force rather than have individual units and organizations solve the same problems independently.

Hegseth said the department must remove bureaucratic barriers that slow the adoption of new technology, telling the panel, “I want you to tell me which rules can be signed away.” He urged officials to identify rules and directives that could be changed without involving new legislation to accelerate progress.

The idea: to radically reduce the sound signature of friendly troops by suppressing every weapon on a battlefield.

The contract also plunged the company into engagement with an emerging area of concern: the health dangers of toxic gases and particles blasted back into the shooter’s face when firing a suppressed weapon.

While the full extent of the risks is still being understood, SOCOM made it clear to Sig at the time of the contract that it wanted to cut down on toxicity, setting a standard that seemed unreachable.

“The requirement at the time was that they wanted a suppressed upper receiver group that produced less toxicity than an unsuppressed M4,” Josh Shoemaker, product manager for defense systems at Sig, told Military Times. “At the time the industry was all like, ‘That’s not physically possible.’ It was really a set of requirements that was defying everybody’s understanding of suppressors.”

In the years that followed, Sig would come under fire multiple times for tests that showed various suppressed weapons had too much toxic blowback. But through lengthy development and the introduction of advanced manufacturing, Shoemaker said, the company reached the ability to reduce 70% of toxic gas blowback in a suppressor.

But there’s a tradeoff, he added. Suppressors can excel at reducing noise, flash or blowback, but not all three at once. One solution the company is now proposing would offer specialized suppressors that maximize blowback reduction for training and signature masking for combat.

The idea, Shoemaker said, is that troops are most at risk from toxic gas exposure when shooting in enclosed spaces and over long periods in the same area, both of which are more likely to happen in training. On top of that, he said, training accounts for the vast majority of the rounds a soldier will ever fire.

“The Army already has this principle where they have training ammunition and go-to-war ammunition. When they go to war, they’re using a different projectile and different ammunition than they are when they’re training,” Shoemaker said. “They do this with their body armor, with their uniforms — their uniforms, when they’re training, are not all flame retardant. … Why wouldn’t we do that same thing with the suppressors?”

Early in its 10-year production contract to design the Army’s next rifle and light machine gun — a program known as Next Generation Squad Weapon — military testing officials cited concerns about how much toxic back-blast the suppressed weapons were producing. The result was a delay that pushed fielding from late 2023 into 2024.

And these problems continued to be reported as recently as last year. The Pentagon’s weapons testing branch noted in its Fiscal Year 2025 annual report that soldiers in an operational assessment “reported negative physiological effects caused by the noxious off-gassing from their weapons, as well as concerns about the extreme heat from the weapons’ suppressors after firing.”

Shoemaker said that some of this feedback was expected when comparing the previous standard rifle, an unsuppressed M4, to the new M7, which has a larger round and a more powerful discharge. But he added that the company was listening to soldiers and “actively working” to address concerns.

“Toxic fumes [are] still a very new thing, right?” Shoemaker said. “When you have a very narrow audience that you’ve been providing these products to for years, you don’t get the same feedback that you do when you’re providing to a much wider audience.”

Behind the scenes, according to Shoemaker, Sig has been close to the forefront of fume-reduction technology. The company uses a 3D printing process called Direct Metal Laser Sintering, or DMLS, to build “complex labyrinths” into their SLX and SLH suppressors designed for fume reduction.

Previously, suppressors were made with machined baffles that were welded together, one by one.

“There would have been no way to get a tool in here to cut any of these paths or direct any of that gas,” Shoemaker said of the new suppressors. “It was game-changing for the entire suppressor industry because it unlocked all of these abilities to … make these complex geometries.”

In service of developing reduced-toxicity suppressors for the Army and later the Navy, Sig acquired two specialized testing environments: the Crane box, invented at Naval Surface Warfare Center-Crane Division, Ind., to precisely measure released carbon dioxide as weapons fire in a confined space; and the Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) chamber, which now measures precise particulate amounts and concentrations of four gases: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide. Sig is the only non-military entity to possess the chambers.

While Shoemaker said the company is still seeking to make incremental improvements to the blowback reduction capabilities of existing suppressors — from, say, the current 70% reduction maximum to 75% — he also said the DMLS technology would make it easy to deliver a variety of suppressors specialized to maximize reduction of either sound, flash or fumes based on use case.

The Army has yet to ask for a mix of training suppressors and combat suppressors. But Shoemaker indicated it may emerge as a solution for a service that wants to have it all in terms of sound, flash and toxic gas reduction, and can’t practically have it all in one can.

If so, the company will be ready.

“With DMLS, [engineers] can make a new design, and we can have it and shoot it three days later,” he said.

Growing demand for air and missile defense systems amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East has strained U.S. weapons stockpiles, prompting the U.S. Army to award Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $58.6 billion in July to ramp up production of PAC-3 interceptors.

Lockheed Martin said PAC-3 Edge incorporates a new seeker, upgraded flight controls and a multi-pulse rocket motor supplied by Northrop Grumman, enhancing the interceptor’s ability to counter advanced threats, including hypersonic missiles, at longer ranges and higher altitudes.

“The cost of this would be about that of the existing PAC-3 MSE,” Tim Cahill, president of missiles and fire control at Lockheed Martin, told Reuters. “At full production, the annual rate would be about 2,000 units a year, comparable with PAC-3 MSE.”

In January, Lockheed Martin signed a seven-year framework agreement with the Pentagon to expand production of its PAC-3 missile interceptors, aiming to increase annual manufacturing capacity to 2,000 units from about 600.

Now, the Air Force says it’s considering a similar move. In a forum hosted by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies on Tuesday, the commander of the Air Force Test Center, Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, said service leaders were “actively working with the Army” to understand how they could apply the concept.

“We’re … looking at how the Army has opened up some of their ranges to commercial access and understanding what it is that we can do, on the Air Force side, to maybe move forward in that direction,” Massaro said.

The Air Force, he said, has had discussions with leaders from Army Test and Evaluation Command to “understand where they have gone with their access to ranges … to open up opportunities for contractors,” he said. He added that in a previous posting as commander of the 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., he had worked with Air Force officials and contractors to arrange smaller-scale test range access for specific tests. That experience, he said, had yielded “a lot of lessons” for how the arrangement could work.

He acknowledged the threat from adversaries gathering imagery from above – an existing and growing risk with the rise of drone incursions that such a move might exacerbate.

“We do understand that we have critical capabilities that we’re testing and we need to protect them,” Massaro said. “We do understand that there is a threat from an information security standpoint that we do pay attention to when we execute our tests, and we do work to design our processes and our ways of testing to account for that.”

But the advantages, he said, are also evident.

“Industry really is leading the way in a lot of ways on exploration and development, using their own internal research and development,” Massaro said. “And allowing them the ability to gain access to capabilities like the ranges helps … them to accelerate that learning to a point when it may become a useful, relevant technology for our military to consider using … So to to help them along that process in ways that we can through range or other assets, enable some of that work to help move the needle forward.”

Former Army Secretary Dan Driscoll made the opening of service test ranges to industry one of the centerpieces of his work to eliminate barriers to industry and drive efficiency in innovation. In a January interview with CBS, he described conditions that private companies couldn’t easily replicate on their own, such as a range set up to imitate a Ukrainian battlefield and space to test anti-jamming and hypersonic weapons technology. He also said that opening Army ranges would cut down the traditional range test process from up to 18 months to as little as 30 days.

“A company with a good idea shouldn’t need a team of lawyers and a program of record just to prove their equipment works,” Driscoll said in an August statement announcing the range openings. “So we fixed that. One front door … a real person to walk you in, and on the other side, everything the modern battlefield demands: contested airspace, degraded signals and the space to test at real scale.”

The ranges the Army made available to industry via an online application portal include Dugway Proving Ground, Utah; West Cibola Range, part of Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz.; Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center, Miss.; Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center, Mich.; and the Multidomain Training Area range complex within the Morocco-based Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center.

The over one-million-square-foot facility in Palmdale, California, is set to be the final assembly line at Air Force Plant 42, according to a Thursday release. The facility will support the B-21 Raider’s production as the force previously announced the accelerated delivery timeline for the next-generation stealth bomber fleet.

“It’s more than construction … we’re moving fast to build B-21s!” Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said in a social media post following the groundbreaking.

The service and defense company agreed to increase annual production capacity by 25% while keeping cost, schedule and performance in mind.

The deal uses $4.5 billion in already authorized funding under fiscal year 2025 reconciliation legislation, with the first operational aircraft on track for delivery to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, in 2027.

“This groundbreaking represents more than construction; it represents a sustained commitment to delivering the capability our nation needs at the speed the security environment demands,” Director of Critical Major Weapon Systems and Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager Gen. Dale White said in the release.

“The B-21 Raider is foundational to the Air Force’s future long-range strike capability, and this investment strengthens the industrial capacity required to field that capability faster,” he continued.

The acquisition portfolio of the B-21s is a minimum of 100 aircraft, and the accelerated production builds on the program’s performance to shorten delivery timelines for the fleet, the release says.

B-21s are meant to replace the aging B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit fleets over the coming decades. The aircraft took its first flight test in 2023 and are still in the flight testing stage. They are expected to fly with a two-pilot configuration to best first their mission profile.

“The B-21 team has established the foundation to accelerate production responsibly,” Col. Nicholas Jordan, B-21 Systems program director, Rapid Capabilities Office, said in the release. “This investment in Palmdale will provide the infrastructure, workforce and manufacturing capacity needed to deliver the Raider to the Air Force at an increased rate.”

In a first, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations has certified the group to operate and instruct others on the Skydio X10D, with the model able to assist missions that need “an eye in the sky,” according to a Tuesday release.

Six personnel completed a weeklong course at the office’s headquarters in Quantico, Virginia, making up the first group of instructors able to bring back the capability to technical operation units in the field, the statement reads.

“We not only learned how to operate the drones, but also how to properly instruct other individuals on how to fly successfully to meet mission needs,” Special Agent Logan Trigg, assigned to the 2nd Field Investigations Squadron Technical Operations Program, said in the announcement.

Trigg will now train the entire 2nd FIS on drone operations in order for all agents to be certified, ensuring the ability to “attack the mission effectively.”

With the “train-the-trainer” model, the Office of Special Investigations aims to grow the program so the capability can support surveillance, outdoor crime scene, protective-service support and other operations that need aerial monitoring.

The course at Quantico required agents to complete about 16 hours of classroom instruction that included topics such as airspace, Federal Aviation Administration requirements and mission planning. Then it led to roughly 16 hours of flight scenarios around the AFOSI mission, which included one exercise in which a student lifted the aircraft to roughly 400 feet to identify a vehicle’s license plate and track it for a mile.

Another exercise used the aircraft’s thermal camera at night to find a person hidden in a wooded area.

AFOSI began working on this capability in 2024 with Detachment 111 at Edwards Air Force Base, California, which served as the working pilot program.

“Det. 111 helped establish the proof of concept for a broader expansion,” Special Agent Scott Zawacki, AFOSI Technical Operations program manager, said in the release.

Although the technology hasn’t been used in a real AFOSI case yet, demonstrations are showcasing how it can best support field operations like crime scene documentation, reconnaissance and spatial data capturing.

Five X10Ds are slated to be used by technical operations agents in January 2027, according to the release.

Talon Blue executed its first fully autonomous flight in Mojave, California, which included taxi, takeoff, in-flight maneuvers and landing, according to a recent company release.

The modular design, part of the defense company’s internally funded Project Talon portfolio, focuses on advancing manufacturing to lower cost and speed production without decreasing mission capability, per the statement.

Upgrades to manufacturing and design decreased part count and overall weight, which lowered the cost and increased the production timeline to meet the demand for autonomous systems.

“Our customers made it clear they need autonomous systems that can be fielded faster and more affordably without sacrificing mission effectiveness. We listened,” Craig Woolston, vice president and general manager of research and advanced design at Northrop Grumman, said in the release.

“Talon Blue’s first flight is one step toward a new generation of autonomous capabilities,” he continued. “Every flight and lesson strengthens our broader autonomy work and sharpens what comes next.”

The announcement came just weeks after U.S. Air Force officials announced their intention to have 500 autonomous aircraft in service by 2032.

Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink released the names of Anduril’s FQ-44A and General Atomics’s FQ-42A to be dubbed “Fury” and “Vengeance,” respectively. Production contracts for the two companies were awarded in June, a month before Anduril completed its first-ever live-fire test. General Atomics intends to have its live-fire testing this fall.

The Air Force has not awarded Northrop Grumman a contract for CCAs yet, but the company is included in the service’s baseline contract pool for mission autonomy software production.

The service chose six vendors in June for the software’s performance-based competition for Increment 1 with the aim of selecting one by summer 2027.