General Atomics reveals Gambit unmanned aircraft

The Gambit will be General Atomics' offering for the US Air Force's Off-Boarding Sensing Station programme. (GA-ASI)

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) has revealed the Gambit unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that it is developing for the US Air Force (USAF) Off-Boarding Sensing Station (OBSS) programme.

Revealed on 3 March, Gambit is billed by the company as “an advanced concept aircraft”, utilising artificial intelligence (AI) to complete a variety of tasks without being prompted by an operator.

“GA-ASI's software and integration systems will support detection and analysis, and provide users with the highest-quality intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance ever possible from an unmanned aircraft. On point out ahead of US Air Force tactical aircraft, Gambit will also be able to sense and track targets of interest, and distribute that information across the battlespace,” GA-ASI said.

Along with Kratos, GA-ASI was contracted by the US Department of Defense (DoD) in October 2021 to develop the OBSS for UAVs. The two contracts were valued at USD49 million each, and will run until 31 January 2024.

The OBSS is geared at reducing the cost of attritable UAVs to be developed as ‘loyal wingmen' for manned combat aircraft. The US is working on a number of such projects, namely Skyborg, LongShot, and the Kratos XQ-58A Valkyrie demonstrator.