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Defense tech company Shield AI has announced a new autonomous drone designed to work alongside Air Force pilots.
The uncrewed platform, called X-BAT, has a 2,000-mile range and a unique trick up its sleeve: It uses vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), allowing it to launch without a runway anywhere in the world.
The X-BAT is a continuation of the company’s AI-enabled drone line that started with the much smaller V-BAT, which is already proven and fully operational. The Coast Guard is using the V-BAT platform after awarding Shield AI a $198 million contract.
The X-BAT hasn’t made it off the ground yet; the company says it expects to launch test flights in 2026. The $27 million aircraft is designed to carry air-to-air missiles, bombs and even electronic warfare platforms, making it a highly adaptable entry into the Air Force Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program.
Shield AI wants to “prove the value of autonomy” and “reimagine airpower,” said Brandon Tseng, the company’s founder and president.
“X-BAT represents the next part of that plan, expanding U.S. and allied warfighting capacity through a transformative, runway-independent aircraft. Airpower without runways is the holy grail of deterrence,” Mr. Tseng said.
X-BAT is in a tight race with other platforms. YFQ-42A by General Atomics conducted test flights in California in August. The Air Force and major defense contractor RTX are collaborating on the General Atomics drone.
“X-BAT is a revolution in airpower because it combines four things — VTOL, range, multirole capability and autonomy,” said Armor Harris, a senior vice president for aircraft at Shield AI.
The autonomy is Shield AI’s Hivemind product, an artificial intelligence-enabled software “designed to fly platforms in communications-denied, degraded, and limited environments,” giving the X-BAT an edge in a new drone landscape, the company said.
The Air Force has already selected the Hivemind software as part of its CCA program but not the X-BAT. The software was tested in June on another General Atomics platform, the MQ-20 Avenger, keeping in line with a more collaborative mode between major contractors that the Department of Defense has pushed recently.
Shield AI will also supply Hivemind for General Atomics’ YFQ-42A. The only other company selected by the Air Force to provide its airframe is Anduril for its Fury platform, which Anduril and the Air Force announced in April.
The larger goal for the Air Force program is to develop mission-configurable and uncrewed aircraft to engage alongside a modern combat airframe. The X-BAT platform’s VTOL design aims to work for more than just the Air Force.
The goal for X-BAT is to be the backbone of a “distributed, unmanned fires network,” which every U.S. military service is discussing as a major requirement moving forward in light of the conflict in Ukraine, Shield AI says. The X-BAT aims to be able to land and launch “from ships, remote islands, or austere forward bases” without the need for a prebuilt runway or major infrastructure.
Renders on the company’s site show the drone on a trailer with a hydraulic or similar style lift gate pointing the fighter jet toward the sky before igniting its engines for liftoff. The 40-foot-long wing is shown as being removable or foldable, allowing the trailers to store alongside one another and taking up less space than a traditional airframe.
This new category of AI-enabled, uncrewed fighter jet is building on lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine, especially the realization that high-cost, manned systems are competing with disposable swarms of smaller, faster drones, the Air Force says.
At a cost of $27 million, X-BAT may not seem inexpensive, but it is nearly 10 times less costly to field than a fifth-generation aircraft.
• John T. Seward can be reached at jseward@washingtontimes.com.
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