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Aviation is entering a new era —moving away from legacy software practices and multi-year update cycles toward modern, modular, and scalable software systems that can be rapidly deployed to enable critical missions. This shift is fundamentally changing how we develop, test, and deploy software for military and commercial aircraft.
For decades, the defense industry focused on exquisite platforms. Last decade’s fighter jets were highly specialized and integrated entirely by the prime contractor, which led to vendor lock and, often, delays caused primarily by software-related deficiencies. While the approach was effective at the time, today’s dynamic threat landscape requires more flexible and rapidly evolving solutions.
As unmanned systems become the norm, new architectures are needed. These new architectures must support fielding heterogeneous systems of systems. This requires an autonomy solution that is both platform-agnostic and modular—a different paradigm in architecting and deploying software.
To field these complex systems faster, the Department of Defense is leveraging Acuity, Applied Intuition’s autonomy stacks, and Axion, Applied Intuition’s autonomy development toolchain.
Acuity for a Hybrid Autonomy Approach
Acuity starts with understanding and decomposing the missionized tasks the autonomy is responsible for. Former service members on our team, including fighter pilots, air battle managers, and flight test engineers, work closely with our Silicon Valley product engineering teams to break down missions into discrete behavioral modules. Expert decomposition ensures that our modules reflect established doctrine and tactics, building trust with our operators and users. From there, engineers assemble a scalable solution leveraging core Acuity modules and adding additional modules where needed.
Modular architecture also enables a hybrid approach to autonomy. Acuity leverages machine learning (ML) and reinforcement learning (RL) in targeted areas where it provides a clear advantage. This could include optimizing sensor tasking, refining maneuver execution, or enhancing multi-vehicle coordination. These optimized modules work seamlessly with others that are rules-based or heuristics-based to ensure reliability of core, guaranteed behaviors.
Acuity integrates the reliability of heuristics with the adaptability of learned behaviors. Each has separate value, and intelligently combining them delivers baseline safety while unlocking learning-based optimizations.
Axion for Full Lifecycle Tooling
Building a modular architecture requires a new set of tools. Subcomponent testing in isolation is not sufficient to guarantee performance of a complex, hybrid system. Axion provides the robust infrastructure to build, validate, and deploy these systems at speed.
The workflow begins with Axion Sim, where engineers model autonomous behaviors in closed-loop environments. Development alternates between high-level mission simulations to test coordination, timing, and outcomes and deep, high-fidelity sensor-level simulations for radar, EO/IR, and RF payloads.
These simulations generate data that engineers use to evaluate key metrics, from comms latency to maneuver success. These insights inform updates to the autonomy stack, which can be made manually or iteratively improved through our Axion RL playground. Once validated, new behaviors can be tested with live assets, or a combination of live and constructive assets, using Axion Mission Control, our flexible command and control (C2) interface.
This full lifecycle tooling ensures that teams can iterate and deploy autonomy rapidly that performs reliably across the mission envelope.
Autonomy is Never Done
Autonomy is never truly “done” or “out of the box.” As new tactics and threats emerge, autonomy must evolve to meet the changing operational environment. The modular nature of Acuity is an asset for rapidly evolving contested operations.
In the DARPA Air Combat Evolution program, our team observed a performance degradation during a tactical air-to-air engagement. Leveraging Acuity’s modular design, they were able to identify, correct, and deploy a fix to the live asset in under 24 hours. This pace is needed to continue providing decisive advantages to our warfighters.
This is not unique to a single engagement or domain. Building this agility into the core architecture is how we ensure that our systems remain relevant and effective. Acuity’s core architecture is shared across ground, maritime, and aerial systems, enabling teams to benefit from lessons learned across all environments. This all-domain foundation reduces redundancy, speeds delivery timelines, and supports interoperability, which is critical for defense programs that demand autonomy across multiple operational domains.
Shifting from monolithic, black-box systems to modular, composable autonomy is the decisive change for modern autonomy. Acuity’s architecture, paired with the full-lifecycle tooling of Axion, delivers a framework that is not only mission-ready and operator-trusted, but also infinitely adaptable. This is the only way to build autonomy that is relevant and effective in an ever-changing world.
To learn more about how Applied Intuition defense products are reshaping air dominance, contact us to request a demo.
