17 September 2020

Update - AFA 2020: Lockheed Martin develops Speed Racer digital unmanned flight vehicle

by Pat Host

Lockheed Martin has developed an unmanned flight vehicle called Speed Racer that is also a digital engineering pilot project, according to company officials.

Joe Pokora, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works programme manager, told reporters on 16 September during the Air Force Association’s (AFA’s) annual conference that Speed Racer is the design and hardware demonstration that the company undertook to help transform its operations. Speed Racer focuses on how Lockheed Martin can use this new digital engineering toolset to deliver solutions faster.

Two employees leverage augmented reality and 3D work instructions to build an air vehicle. While not demonstrative of the full scope of a digital thread (such as connecting engineering, manufacturing, and the supply chain in one virtual environment for a single source of truth), it visually connotes how a company can apply that data model in action on the shop floor. (Lockheed Martin)

“The ultimate capability of the system is really not what the project is focusing on,” Pokora said. “What we are really working to do is show how we use the toolset and how we implement (it), starting from a one-page concept, and (bringing) that all the way through flight”.

The advantage of using digital engineering, Pokora said, is that there is one set of data. While others in various parts of the engineering process still look at it through their own toolsets, each toolset is connected to the same core information.

Lockheed Martin has developed an unmanned flight vehicle called Speed Racer that is also a digital e...

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