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 private companies, notably Merlin Labs, to develop an "autonomy government reference architecture" (A-GRA), a standardized blueprint for automating all military aircraft platforms.
A-GRA aims to ensure interoperability and accelerate innovation by providing a common framework for integrating flight-certified "plug and play" autonomous systems across diverse Air Force platforms.
Merlin Labs' specific contribution focuses on developing advanced "contingency management" capabilities within A-GRA, enabling autonomous systems to detect faults, recover from failures, and adapt to mission changes for improved resilience and survivability.
This initiative is critical for advancing the Air Force's vision of trusted, resilient autonomy, enabling both current fleet automation (e.g., tankers) and future collaborative uncrewed aircraft operations.

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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.