\u201cTogether, they flew a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike,\u201d the Air Force said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cARTU\u00b5\u2019s primary responsibility was finding enemy launchers while the pilot was on the lookout for threatening aircraft, both sharing the U-2\u2019s radar.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n [Read: An AI just embarrassed the US Air Force in a virtual dogfight<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n ARTU\u00b5 is a modified version of the open-source algorithm \u00b5Zero, which has been used to defeat humans at games such as Go and Chess. <\/span><\/p>\n The Air Force used more than half a million simulated training iterations to enable the algorithm to manipulate the plane\u2019s sensor. After take-off, it determined whether to focus the radar on finding missiles or protecting the aircraft.<\/p>\n The Air Combat Command\u2019s U-2 Federal Laboratory developed the tech to be transferrable to other systems, answering the National Defense Strategy\u2019s call to invest in autonomy. The ultimate aim is to give the US military a technological edge over rivals such as China.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that in order to fight and win in a future conflict with a peer adversary, we must have a decisive digital advantage,\u201d said air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr. \u201cAI will play a critical role in achieving that edge, so I\u2019m incredibly proud of what the team accomplished.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/cdn0.tnwcdn.com\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/1\/files\/2020\/12\/Screenshot-2020-12-17-at-14.53.34.png\")