General Atomics Aeronautical Systems has successfully completed a simulated autonomous shoot-down during a multi-aircraft test involving both live and virtual elements, marking a significant milestone in unmanned combat air vehicle development.
The test, conducted on 11 June 2025, involved a company-owned MQ-20 Avenger unmanned jet equipped with government reference autonomy software. According to General Atomics, the exercise demonstrated the Avenger’s ability to operate autonomously in a complex, mixed environment—performing tasks such as mid-air station keeping, patrolling a simulated combat zone, and intercepting live targets.
In the course of the event, the MQ-20 made its own engagement decisions and successfully executed a simulated missile launch against two live aircraft. This “live-on-live” engagement highlighted what General Atomics described as the current maturity of autonomous combat capabilities for Group 5 unmanned aerial vehicles.
Another critical element of the demonstration was the in-flight switch between software packages. After completing one mission segment using the government-provided autonomy suite, the aircraft transitioned mid-flight to Shield AI’s Hivemind software. This transition was accomplished without any degradation in performance or stability, reinforcing the value of open architecture systems.
General Atomics emphasised that the test reflects the company’s broader philosophy of enabling hardware to remain agnostic to software origin. “Being able to rapidly integrate and test autonomy elements from multiple vendors helps ensure the most effective capabilities are available to the warfighter, regardless of origin,” said Michael Atwood, Vice President of Advanced Programs at General Atomics.
The exercise forms part of a wider push towards a modular, flexible autonomy model that allows governments to select and integrate capabilities from a diverse vendor base—similar to an “app store” approach. This avoids vendor lock-in and facilitates faster updates and innovation cycles, aligning military autonomy development with commercial software practices.
General Atomics has now completed a series of such interoperability and integration trials as it continues to refine its suite of long-endurance, multi-mission unmanned systems. The MQ-20 Avenger, a jet-powered platform capable of high-speed operations and complex mission profiles, has become a testbed for the next generation of autonomous combat capabilities.
Need to decide. Either we build our own which might be better in the long run or we order some of these. Maybe both.