An AFWERX Fusion exhibitor demonstrates his Multi-Domain Operations-related product for an attendee during the event on July 23 in Las Vegas. (U.S. Air Force photo by Bridget Bennett)
Correction 6/16/23 at 9:22 am ET: The original version of this story misstated Ralston’s rank. It has been updated to reflect that he is a Lt. Col.
WASHINGTON — Over the next few months, AFWERX, the Air Force’s technology accelerator, will be working to establish a new “proving ground” to test different autonomous technologies and capabilities, according to an official.
The testing site is a part of AFWERX’s autonomy prime portfolio that was soft-launched a few months ago, Lt. Col. Bryan Ralston said at the Defense One Tech Summit today. The portfolio will fully launch at the beginning of the next fiscal year.
“We are focusing in the next six months or so, since we have soft launched, on building up the infrastructure for that proving ground to increase the throughput and capability,” Ralston, a flight test engineer and AFWERX’s autonomy prime lead, said at the Defense One Tech Summit.
“Once we have an approved budget in [fiscal 2024] and we have that money flowing, we’ll release… an innovative capabilities offering focused on certain tech areas,” he said, referring to a request to industry for cutting edge tech proposals. “But we need funding for that, obviously, and I’m hesitant to release it now with an uncertain funding doc because I don’t want everyone to spend a lot of resources developing proposals… So I’m trying to do you all a favor.”
Lawmakers are currently negotiating the FY24 defense funding, but AFWERX usually gets a total budget over $1 billion for its various projects and initiatives.
Ralston didn’t expand on what those specific tech areas would be, but said that with sufficient funding he hopes “that we get some more autonomous flights in… very controlled environments in the next year, whether that be the autonomous cargo airplanes… [or] small dedicated [unmanned aerial systems] doing a specific military application.
“Just seeing and demonstrating what’s in the realm of possible so that when we develop requirements,” he added, noting AFWERX has done real-world experimentation. “This isn’t a thought experiment anymore. We’ve actually done something and seeing how it works and how we can adapt these technologies.”
With the proving ground, AFWERX will be testing autonomous tech related to navigation and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities and not focusing on systems that can employ weapons. Ralston envisions carrying out up to two tests per week with new systems and capabilities in the proving ground.
“And that can be varied based off of kind of what’s coming down the pipe, what users are asking for,” he said. “One to two tests per week is what we envision.”