Northrop Grumman has confirmed the first six partners for its Beacon autonomy testbed ecosystem. Applied Intuition, Autonodyne, Merlin, Red 6, Shield AI and SoarTech, an Accelint company, will use Beacon to rapidly test and deliver autonomous solutions at scale.

The partners will use the Scaled Composites-built Model 437 aircraft, along with Northrop Grumman’s flight autonomy hardware and integration expertise, during flight demonstrations set for this year.

“Beacon is about collaboration across industry between companies of all sizes and expertise,” says Tom Jones, corporate vice president and president, Aeronautics Systems, Northrop Grumman. “By providing open access to the Beacon ecosystem, we’re enhancing the innovation, new competition and ultimately the autonomous capabilities that industry can deliver to our customers, with unmatched speed and at scale.”

Beacon is built on more than 500,000 autonomous flight hours and decades of Northrop Grumman autonomy experience. It integrates advanced autonomous software and solutions within a digital environment, and is aligned with government reference architectures.

It aims to accelerate software deployment, reduce risk and improve readiness for future aircraft programmes.