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MQ-28A Ghost Bat Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA)
Loyal Wingman - Boeing Airpower Teaming System

The Boeing MQ-28 is a new uncrewed aircraft using artificial intelligence to be that force multiplier. It’s designed to work as a smart team with existing military aircraft to complement and extend airborne missions. The MQ-28 has enough capability to get the job done – from ISR to tactical early warning and more – but with a low-cost design that allows operators to confidently put it on the front line.

The Boeing MQ-28 is the company’s first uncrewed system to be designed and developed in Australia. Designed to provide a transformational capability for global defense customers, it is the company’s largest investment in a new uncrewed aircraft program outside the United States. This purpose-built aircraft can be missionized to suit country-specific needs. This newest addition to Boeing’s defense portfolio will be a force multiplier for global customers.

The Boeing team in Australia has developed a completely new uncrewed production-ready system, with the inclusion of Australian suppliers. Boeing has invested in a purpose-built system that leverages advanced manufacturing and digital production capabilities. The program uses Boeing’s global R&D expertise, as well as a strong industry team of agile global suppliers, with the ability to support national prosperity and sovereignty objectives.

The Boeing MQ-28 will provide a disruptive advantage for allied forces’ crewed and uncrewed missions. It will:

• Provide fighter-like performance, measuring 38 feet long (11.7m) and able to fly more than 2,000 nautical miles.
• Integrate sensor packages onboard to support intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, tactical early warning missions and more.
• Use artificial intelligence to fly independently or in support of crewed aircraft while maintaining safe distance between other aircraft.

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Tactical Technology Office (TTO), posted a Funding Opportunity for Disruptive Capabilities for Future Warfare [HR001118S0028] on 12 June 2018. The U.S. military must pivot from their historic emphasis on dominance to one of lethality – enabling enhanced offensive capability where needed, applied by a more agile and resilient force. DARPA/TTO intends to develop new systems and supporting technologies that will fuel new force structures and in turn, challenge DoD warfighting agencies, the defense industrial base, and the resulting military systems to innovate conflict and engagement. TTO seeks new ideas to drive this enterprise disruption across the seams of traditional warfighting domains.

DARPA is built on a foundation of pivotal investments in high-risk technologies for national security; the Office-wide BAA represents a critical portal for innovation and initial investment towards developing the DARPA portfolio. TTO views the Office-wide BAA as an opportunity to gain knowledge or understanding necessary to determine the means by which a specific need may be met. Submissions should describe how an investment would provide the unique insight into the problem TTO is trying to solve, and quantifiably substantiate those assertions. These insights may include proof-of-concept prototypes, system analyses, or any other work product that identifies the path to a new system concept. TTO encouraged approaches that prove (or disprove) this unique insight as fast as possible – TTO was interested in quickly identifying promising technologies and moving them to the next phase of development.

TTO seeks undeterrable air presence in any environment and theater, from permissive to highly contested, at a time of American choosing. The US acquisition system is finding it difficult to respond on relevant timescales to adversary progress, which has made the search for nextgeneration capabilities at once more urgent and more futile. More fundamentally, platform stealth may be approaching physical limits.

Are there acceptable alternatives to air dominance? Is it possible to achieve Joint Force objectives without clearing the skies of enemy fighters and bombers, and eliminating all surface-based threats? Can this be achieved without placing a high-value, sophisticated platform and crew at risk – reducing leverage potential adversaries currently hold over the U.S.? How can TTO go beyond evolutionary advances in stealth technology and disrupt traditional doctrines of air dominance/air supremacy?

Technical thrusts could include, but are not limited to:

• Capabilities that promote consistently successful mission objectives in a contested air environment – or undeterrable air presence.
• Investments in infrastructure and techniques that enable faster development and adaptation of air capabilities to support undeterrable air presence.
• Diverse weapons technologies that address threats with a limited window of vulnerability and identify, locate, target, and engage appropriately.
• Lethality through a combination of overwhelming performance (e.g. hypersonics) and overwhelming numbers (e.g. swarming low-cost weapons).
• Reduced reliance on increasingly complex, monolithic platforms.
• Greater levels of autonomy and attritability to minimize cost and risk to human warfighters, while increasing overall effectiveness and lethality.

TTO adheres to DARPA’s mission of developing breakthrough technologies to generate surprise and generate leap-ahead military capability. As such, TTO is explicitly not interested in approaches or technologies that offer incremental or evolutionary advancements beyond state-of-the-art.