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European missile manufacturer MBDA has announced the SPEAR family of weapons will be the first cruise missiles to feature artificial intelligence-enhanced collaboration.
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MBDA has reportedly made rapid advances to its Orchestrike collaborative weapons’ artificial intelligence (AI) over the past 12 months and added the capability to SPEAR missiles while keeping a human operator in the loop.
“Being at the forefront of innovation in AI highlights how MBDA has unique technologies and expertise in Europe for delivering the decisive air domain missile capabilities to enable our armed forces to defend our values and freedoms,” said Eric Beranger, CEO of MBDA.
Orchestrike will enhance the performance of SPEAR missiles via AI-driven coordination, collaboration, and cooperation between the missiles and the pilot controlling them from the launch aircraft.
Orchestrike will enable SPEAR missiles to react to threats and work together with the pilot to solve tactical challenges, increasing both missile and platform survivability and overall mission performance. The missiles will only ever operate within the boundaries of operator input, ensuring legal and ethical utilisation at all times.
Since it was unveiled at Paris Air Show 2023, MBDA has rapidly developed Orchestrike from concept towards capability in 12 months. In particular, work has focused on refining the AI algorithms, advancing missile-to-missile datalinks and on integrating both elements together and into SPEAR to enhance the already world-leading capabilities of the cruise missile weapon system.
Orchestrike showcases how MBDA is collaboratively investing across nations to meet the needs of customers. It also demonstrates the ability of the company to innovate, bring capabilities to service quickly, and update spirally.
On the MBDA stand at Farnborough International Airshow, an Orchestrike digital-twin simulator featuring real missile AI and hardware, including new networked-enabled datalinks, will allow military users to immerse themselves in a unique simulated raid where the missiles react live and collaboratively to the developments of a tactical situation thanks to the Orchestrike AI capability.
SPEAR is a family of network-enabled cruise missiles developed by MBDA to meet the need of air forces to defeat and suppress enemy air defences by striking moving targets in all weathers at stand-off ranges. They feature all the advanced features of a cruise missile, including advanced mission planning and the ability to perform complex missions at long ranges while being of a revolutionarily small size – with a single F-35 able to carry eight SPEAR missiles within its weapon bays.
In the future, Orchestrike can be extended to other munitions with network-enabled datalink capabilities.
