Last October, the agency flew and successfully recovered in midair a small Gremlin drone for the first time. More recently, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency made progress on its X-61A Gremlins program, which seeks to deploy and then recover swarms of small, sensor-laden drones from cargo planes in flight.

The Air Force Research Laboratory laid the groundwork for a future manned-unmanned teaming through its Skyborg program, an artificial intelligence-driven wingman that underwent its first flight test in a drone last April.