Agility Prime
Agility Prime is the Air Force’s cutting-edge autonomous, agile logistics, and transformative vertical lift aircraft program. It is designed to support Agile Combat Employment (ACE) and resilient basing capabilities, ensuring operational readiness and flexibility in dynamic environments. The program focuses on pioneering remotely supervised autonomous cargo aircraft and hybrid-electric aircraft to enhance how logistics and operational support are executed in expeditionary operations.
KEY FOCUS AREAS
Autonomous Logistics Solutions: Autonomous technology plays a crucial role in ACE by enhancing operational flexibility, reducing risk to and reliance on Airmen, and enabling efficient, dispersed and resilient operations. Here’s how:
Enhanced Operational Flexibility
Autonomous systems enable faster decision-making and execution in dynamic environments, which is essential for ACE’s dispersed and unpredictable nature.
Reduced Personnel Requirements
Small, mobile units operate independently, simplifying logistics, reducing the personnel risk and overall footprint of satellite bases.
Dispersed, Resilient Operations
Autonomous technologies can operate from dispersed locations, aligning with ACE’s hub-and-spoke model to maintain operations in austere or remote environments, where traditional resources or infrastructure may be limited.
Advanced Aircraft Solutions: Advanced aircraft solutions play a pivotal role in supporting ACE by enabling flexibility and resilience in dispersed operations. These solutions enhance the ability to sustain operations in contested or austere environments, key to the ACE concept.
Increased Expeditionary Flexibility
Pioneering next generation propulsion systems such as hybrid-electric VTOL/STOL aircraft for operations in remote locations without the need for established runways.
Versatile Tactical Logistics
Advanced aircraft solutions can support a variety of roles including cargo transport for resupply and maintenance missions, medical evacuation, and personnel transport.
WHY IT MATTERS
The ACE concept involves dispersing forces and capabilities away from fixed locations, operating from satellite bases in a hub-and-spoke model to make forces less targetable. Agility Prime directly supports this strategy by enabling agile and flexible logistics through autonomous technologies and innovative aircraft designs.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Agility Prime is driving the development of key enabling technologies for autonomous and advanced logistics aircraft through:
- Tech Scouting: Collaborating with industry to assess the maturity and gaps in these technology areas.
- Partnerships: Supporting SBIR and STTR proposals by endorsing applications as a “customer” and providing letters of support in collaboration with other Program Offices.
- Collaborate with Us: Join us in accelerating innovation for the future of Air Force logistics. If your organization is developing rapidly deployable, scalable, and mission-ready autonomy technology, we want to hear from you.