AI agent completes air combat test flight on Gripen E fighter
NewsJune 13, 2025
LINKÖPING, Sweden. Helsing and Saab completed a live flight test of an artificial intelligence (AI) agent aboard a Gripen E fighter jet, during which the AI conducted air combat maneuvers in a beyond-visual-range scenario, the company announced in a statement.
The test flights occurred over the Baltic Sea on May 28 and June 3 as part of a program funded by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), the statement reads. During the tests, control of the aircraft was handed over to Helsing’s Centaur AI agent, which executed maneuvers and issued fire commands against a second, human-controlled Gripen aircraft.
According to the company, Centaur uses self-play reinforcement learning and processes onboard sensor inputs in real time to engage targets and evade threats autonomously. A safety pilot was present to assume control if necessary.
The tests were conducted less than six months after the project’s initiation, leveraging the Gripen E’s software-defined architecture to integrate the AI system, the company says. Saab and Helsing plan to continue testing in increasingly complex mission scenarios to explore collaborative human-machine combat operations
