Air Force Taps Merlin to Refine Aircraft Autonomy

Company will lend its expertise to the military’s development of an autonomy government reference architecture.

Jack Daleo

Wednesday, October 22, 2025 at 04:04 PM ET

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Jack Daleo

The Air Force will leverage Merlin’s expertise to devise a blueprint for automating any military platform. [Courtesy: Merlin Labs]

Key Takeaways:

The U.S. Air Force is partnering with Merlin Labs to develop an Autonomy Government Reference Architecture (A-GRA), a standardized blueprint for automating military aircraft.
This A-GRA aims to guide the design and integration of autonomous systems, ensuring interoperability and allowing commercial developers to create "plug and play" solutions for Air Force platforms.
Merlin Labs will specifically contribute its expertise in "contingency management," focusing on enabling aircraft to autonomously detect faults, recover from issues, and adapt to changing missions.

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The U.S. Air Force is enlisting the private sector to help devise a blueprint for automating military aircraft.

Merlin Labs—the developer of a platform-agnostic, “takeoff-to-touchdown” aircraft autonomy system—on Wednesday deepened its relationship with the Air Force, which has contracted it to explore the automation of its entire tanker fleet. Under a new agreement, Merlin will lend its expertise to the Air Force’s development of an autonomy government reference architecture (A-GRA)—essentially, a blueprint for automating any military platform.