Air Force to Begin Shifting Research Funds to These Kinds of Next-Gen Weapons
An Artist rendering of a next-generation drone swarm from the Air Force 2030 Science and Technology Strategy.
By Patrick Tucker Technology Editor Read bio
April 17, 2019
The Pentagon’s continues to shift focus toward Moscow and Beijing with a new push for tomorrow’s drone swarms and smart missiles.
Taking a page from Silicon Valley, the Air Force has set up a new way to fund science and technology in the areas it sees as most important to the race with China and Russia. To lead the effort the military service branch will create a new chief technology officer position to oversee the development of next-generation capabilities, the Air Force announced on Wednesday at the unveiling of the service’s new science and technology strategy for 2030.
The Air Force funds lots of research, much of it on a small scale: a bit of money here to develop a new antenna capability, a bit there to teach drones to do a new trick, or a bit more there to create a new type of space-age material. The research sometimes makes its way into a formal program of record or an actual new weapon, but at the beginning of the process there is no way to know.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2019/04/air-force-begin-shifting-research-funds-these-kinds-next-gen-weapons/156387/?oref=d-skybox
