General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI) has been awarded a $93.3 million contract from the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) to enhance the autonomous sensing capabilities of unmanned aircraft. The goal of the JAIC Smart Sensor project is to advance Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology by demonstrating object recognition algorithms using an unmanned aircraft, as well as employing onboard AI to control the aircraft’s sensors and direct autonomous flight.

“GA-ASI is excited to leverage the considerable investment we have made to advance the JAIC’s autonomous sensing objective,” said GA-ASI Vice President of Strategic Development J.R. Reid. “This will bring a tremendous increase in unmanned systems capabilities for applications across the full-range of military operations.”

GA-ASI will deploy the technology on the MQ-9 Reaper Remotely Piloted Aircraft configured with multiple sensors, including GA-ASI’s Reaper Defense Electronic Support System (RDESS) and Lynx Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). GA-ASI’s Metis product will be used to command the MQ-9. Metis is an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) tasking and intelligence-sharing application that enables operators to specify effects-based mission objectives and receive automatic notification of actionable intelligence.