Valkyrie: This Autonomous AI Drone Could Be the Military’s Next Weapon | WSJ Equipped

The Valkyrie XQ-58A is a combat drone designed to deliver weapons or assist fighter jets — using artificial intelligence. The prototype has been in development for years and is able to travel 3,000 miles at an altitude of up to 45,000 ft. Experts now say this unmanned vehicle could play a role in a multi-billion-dollar U.S. military effort to use AI to expand its assets to keep up with increasingly advanced adversaries like China.

WSJ looks at how the Valkyrie is built for stealth and how it could fit in the U.S. military’s plans to establish a fleet of AI systems.

0:00 Valkyrie drones
0:58 Specs
4:50 Utility and cost
6:57 Future development

WSJ Equipped
Equipped examines military innovation and tactics emerging around the world, breaking down the tech behind the weaponry and its potential impact.

#Valkyrie #Weapons #WSJ

[savagecub]

From just a purely engineering standpoint these types of weapons make a great deal of common sense. This is the future, like it or not. A drone is always going to be able to out G anything with a human onboard. Plus without the need for things like ejection seats, pressurization and environmental systems the drone is always going to be lighter, faster and more maneuverable as well as cheaper to build and maintain. Additionally when a drone gets shot down there’s no need to launch multiple men and equipment to conduct a search and recovery operation since there’s nothing to recover. It just makes so much more sense.

[rickintexas]

3, 000 mile range, 1800 lbs of munitions, and under $10M, with low radar signature. What an awesome machine.

[ReconTheDon]

I always think about the relative weight against grand pianos when guessing weight of large heavy objects.

[BrandonMeyer]

This platform should be adopted. It is one of the most mature unmanned systems out. Kratos is a smaller player, but history tells us that can be a good thing with us government contracts.

[slimerone]

if anything, the Valkyrie looks pretty badass lol

[jobunaga]

weighs about two or three concert grand pianos? riiight... because the average heft of concert grand pianos is common knowledge. can i get the weight of the valkyrie in units of washing machines? or how about in truck tires?

[sams]

People just throw out the buzzword AI for everything. If he means autonomous flight and control, then he should just say that. People have been using machine learning since the 90s or even earlier.

[robertlamontagne]

The fact that it doesn't need a run way either way is huge. Can bring air power to bear from anywhere!

[JJs_playground]

This is both impressive and horrifying at the same time.

[artcamp]

oh it weighs the same as 3 Grand Pianos? everyone knows how much that is. I'm glad they didn't compare it to other aircraft weights for instance

[ecnvrhl]

This is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. I believe that in nearest future more powerful military will be not even for the number of drones or other hardware but for more witted algorithms and AI systems on that hardware. And also it will be about clever orchestration of all that stuff.

So everything that is autonomous is called AI now. Is my 10-year-old Roomba also AI now?

[asdasdasddgdgdfgdg]

The airframe looks very similar to the German-Spanish EADS Barracuda which had its first flight in 2003 or so. Barracuda was way ahead of its time.

[Paul-wety]

"It's my time", said by Skynet.

[osamaalali]

As a middle eastern, I can’t wait to be bummed by one of those. 😂

Forget about human error, now we have to worry about Ai errors as well 😂

[indac-channel]

looks like a deadly "Thunderbird "

[ricksherman]

All the missiles need to be painted with Winnie The Pooh on their sides 😆

[drone]

I’m an aerospace engineering student designing autonomous drones that drop water bottles on targets. It is incredible how easily and rapidly college students can create these devices at very low cost with the technology available to the public. With the US’ defense spending and available technologies, it’s difficult to imagine what we have in our arsenal.

[Tortuex_]

france signing that agreement not to use AI for military vehicles is going to keep it wayyyy back compared to other countries

[ProducerGio]

I want to be part of this. This is freakin awesome!