Students at the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School recently visited Stanford to learn from leading researchers in artificial intelligence and aerospace technology.

The goal of the Test of AI & Emerging Technologies course, which took place over 10 days in January, was to help the students prepare for testing and evaluating AI-guided aircraft and satellites, which are expected to play a prominent role in future defense operations.

During the first part of the course, the participants attended lectures and classes on deep learning, decision-making algorithms, and robotic perception, among other high-tech topics, and engaged in hands-on learning: Working in teams, they programmed autonomous mobile robots called TurtleBots and then competed to determine which team performed the best. They also heard from research scientists on staff at the AI computing company NVIDIA and from a former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

During the second part of the course, students visited several Silicon Valley-based technology and aircraft companies.

“The idea behind this course is to enhance Test Pilot School curriculum modernization efforts and ensure that these test pilots and test engineers are able to apply data-driven techniques in their profession,” said John Alora, a major in the Air Force and graduate student in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford.

The Stanford School of Engineering partnered with the Department of the Air Force’s Stanford AI Studio to develop the course. “There are multiple ways this collaboration provides benefits to both organizations,” said Marco Pavone, associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. Airmen and Guardians learn about “the latest and greatest from the field of AI and robot autonomy,” while researchers at the university have “a unique opportunity to get a better appreciation of the challenges that are faced by the Air Force, thereby also motivating part of our research.”