The US Navy and GA-ASI are advancing autonomous combat coordination through software that translates commanders’ intent into coordinated actions by crewed and uncrewed aircraft. Their recent test evaluated how an autonomous system could interpret mission requirements, assign activities and modify plans when the operational situation changes.An MQ-20 Avenger participated in the demonstration from GA-ASI’s Gray Butte site near Palmdale, California, while a mission operations centre was located in Poway. The team used a live, virtual and constructive setup to connect the real aircraft with simulated platforms and computer-generated participants across a battlefield scenario involving threats on land, in the air and at sea. This enabled the evaluation of force coordination without physically flying every aircraft in the scenario. Researchers also examined mission timing and the role of human operators in supervising autonomous decisions.The technical integration linked the Navy’s mission planner with GA-ASI’s Tactical Autonomy Ecosystem, or TacACE, the software used to manage the MQ-20’s autonomous missions. Mission data was structured according to the government’s Autonomy Government Reference Architecture and included objectives, constraints and possible threats. Operators could then set priorities, assign tasks and establish rules for cooperation between participants. TacACE processed this information to interpret the commander’s intent and revise mission plans as the simulated conditions evolved, according to GA-ASI.The work follows previous Navy–GA-ASI collaboration. Their Collaborative Autonomy Mission Planning and Debrief project, launched in April, focuses on planning and reviewing uncrewed operations, with proposed tests covering air patrol, threat neutralization and integration with platforms such as the F/A-18 Super Hornet. In another earlier demonstration, GA-ASI said the MQ-20 detected and tracked a piloted aircraft with its onboard sensors, calculated an intercept and conducted a simulated engagement without direct piloting. The aircraft was also tested for compliance with assigned operating boundaries and avoidance of restricted airspace.
