“We’re refocusing on how we are achieving digital transformation. We’re taking a services-oriented methodology,” Pringle told reporters during a media roundtable at the annual AFA Warfare Symposium.

Formally approved and established on March 1, this new Digital Capabilities Directorate (DCD) is working to leverage best practices implemented by commercial companies to pave the way for more streamlined research processes and business operations, officials say.

The organization is fusing together formerly siloed elements of AFRL’s former Research Collaboration and Computing Directorate, as well as the lab’s former Business Process Reengineering Division and others. It also has roots that trace back to a temporary digital “war room” that was stood up to help drive innovation.

Much of the activities that were being conducted under those units will continue, Pringle confirmed. However, they’ll “be nested under this bigger capability that is more modern and aligned with how we operate in today’s world,” she said. 

AFRL officials involved in establishing the DCD are strategically working to help their colleagues “decouple” the data they rely on from the applications and tools they capture and model it in. 

“How do you think about that data as an asset of its own and manage it, so you can build that digital thread and know that you pick the same piece of data as the last person?” AFRL’s Chief Data Officer Andrea Mahaffey told reporters.

She noted that the lab is taking “very much an API-mindset approach,” referring to the term application programming interface — a software intermediary that essentially enables two different applications to communicate. 

“We don’t all need to be in the same tool, in the same platform or on the same network — we need the data to move across, and to get that data in the right hands of the right people,” Mahaffey said.

During the media briefing, AFRL’s Aerospace Systems Directorate Director Michael Gregg and Chief Enterprise Architect James Sumpter said the lab is utilizing a model-based approach and is being deliberate about balancing alignment, autonomy, automation, and agility in its in-the-works and existing architectures.

Officials said they are taking an iterative approach to innovation.

“We’ve got a big focus on architecting and building out the future of [information technology] for AFRL — and we call it the labverse. It’s an integrated digital infrastructure for science and technology,” Sumpter explained.

That virtual environment will host sensitive government workloads at impact level 5, officials also confirmed. 

Although the directorate and labverse associated with it are still nascent, AFRL officials hope to extend this experiment across the broader Air Force in the future. 

“We want to expand this as much as possible. So, that’s why we deliberately focused on managing our data first,” Gregg said. 

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The X-62 VISTA is a “highly modified” F-16 fighter jet, Maj. Gen. Evan Dertien, commander of the Air Force Test Center, told reporters during a media roundtable at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and. Cyber conference. It has previously been used to train pilots to operate various types of aircraft.

“What we’ve done with investments from DARPA, with investments from the [Air Force] Research Lab is put it an autonomy core kind of brain on there. That’s going to allow us to actually go fly autonomy [technology] and have a person still in the aircraft to intervene if we need to,” he said.

The X-62 can simulate a variety of aircraft due to its variable stability, including a slow autonomous vehicle or a high-performance fighter, he noted.

“Having an autonomy engine on there will help us start with our risk reduction. So that aircraft just went through a major modification. It’s out, it’s flying. We’ll do some stability stuff here in the fall. And then as we go into the winter, we’re taking the DARPA experiment with the Alpha Dogfight [Trials] and the [Air Combat Evolution] different experiments — and we’ll take that software and actually put it on the aircraft and start developing autonomy there,” Dertien said.

Data from the experiments will be sent back to AFRL and industry partners that are working on mature the technology.

The X-62 is going to be very busy with testing, according to Dertien.

“The X-62 is booked book solid. We have a roadmap for the next probably two or three years of all the different programs it will support. We’re also looking at efforts to try to figure out how we would actually bring up more aircraft and get autonomy engines on to accelerate this. But as far as what we’ll continue to do — that that will probably evolve based on the data of what we do. But I think increasing capacity right now is one of our [desired] things.”

Adding additional platforms into the mix will help the test center.

“Eventually, hopefully, we can get some other aircraft modified with the autonomy core engine and start accelerating the pace of testing, look at teaming tactics, and get two ships and three ships and things like that going,” Dertien said.

The airspace at the Air Force Test Center can serve as a sandbox for technologies developed by the Air Force Research Lab and its partners.

AFRL has been working on a platform-agnostic “autonomy core” system for drones as part of its Skyborg program, which is expected to inform the service’s future collaborative combat aircraft program. The technology has already been put through its paces on other experimental aircraft.

“From a software standpoint, and what we’re looking at … with the Skyborg autonomy core system being platform agnostic, we’re trying to have it do some of the very basic things that aircraft do, right — aviate, navigate, communicate, and what are those parameters? But then how do we make it more specific for the platform that it’s operating on? So, what are the specific apps, if you will, that plug in, if it’s a fighter type, or what app, you know, that will be uniquely developed if we put the autonomy core system on a different type aircraft?” AFRL Commander Maj. Gen. Heather Pringle said during the roundtable.

When asked later by DefenseScoop if the Air Force had decided which platform would be the next to receive the autonomy core system, Pringle declined to identify candidates that are being considered.

“Right now, we’re just trying to make it platform agnostic so we can develop the different apps. So we’re still working through all of those,” she said.

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