Air Force AI autonomy team sets up on Wright State’s campus

Three Air Force units began using space on Wright State University’s campus in Fairborn on Oct. 1, expanding the university’s partnership with nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Autonomy Capability Team, known as ACT 3, will focus on applying artificial intelligence to Air Force operations. The Digital Capabilities Team will work on digital transformation, and the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) will provide educational programming for base personnel, according to Wright State.

Greg Sample, Wright State’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, noted that the new units build on the university’s existing collaboration with Wright-Patterson and add to research activity in the Vishal Soin Center for Innovation.

What ACT 3 does

AFRL’s ACT 3 has been described as an “AI special operations organization” whose mission is to operationalize AI at scale for the Air Force. Its work includes algorithms that fly F-16s autonomously, autonomous aerial refueling and a space program that tracks measures of human performance, according to a 2025 Wright State profile of Kevin Schmidt, a Wright State graduate and senior neuroscientist on the team.

The Digital Capabilities Team comes from AFRL’s digital transformation work, which aims “to elevate access to models, simulations and more to aid in future R&D efforts,” according to AFRL.

AFIT, the Air Force’s graduate school and professional education center, is based at Wright-Patterson. Its programming on Wright State’s campus will serve base personnel.

A partnership four years in the making

The move builds on agreements going back to December 2022, when Wright State began providing office and laboratory space to Air Force personnel in its Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building. The four-story building has 55,000 square feet of research space and houses the region’s only MRI scanner dedicated to research.

In December 2024, Wright State and Wright-Patterson expanded the agreement so AFRL and base personnel could work across campus, with access to labs, classrooms, office space and on-campus housing if needed. More than 60 AFRL researchers were working in the building’s labs at the time, on topics such as sleep, brain stimulation and cognitive performance monitoring.

“Putting people on Wright State’s campus, working together, getting them outside the fence from an Air Force perspective, is going to allow excellence to happen,” said Timothy Bunning, then AFRL’s chief technology officer, at the 2024 signing. Bunning has since moved to Wright State, where he serves as interim dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

What it means for students

When the first agreement was signed in 2022, Wright State President Sue Edwards noted that the partnership would create new opportunities for students to take part in Air Force research.

The Oct. 5 trustees meeting that announced the new units highlighted one student path into Air Force work. Graduate student Rachael Ballentine has accepted a position with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center through the federal SMART Scholarship program.

At the same meeting, trustees approved a new mathematics bachelor’s degree with tracks in data science and statistics.

By the numbers

• 3 Air Force units now using space on Wright State’s campus
• Oct. 1 date the units began using the space
• 60+ AFRL researchers working in Wright State labs as of December 2024
• 55,000 square feet of research space in the Neuroscience Engineering Collaboration Building
• 2022 year Wright State first opened campus space to Air Force researchers
• 12,157 students enrolled at Wright State this fall