Northrop Grumman has confirmed the first six partners for its Beacon autonomy testbed ecosystem. Applied Intuition, Autonodyne, Merlin, Red 6, Shield AI and SoarTech, an Accelint company, will use Beacon to rapidly test and deliver autonomous solutions at scale. The partners will use the Scaled Composites-built Model 437 aircraft, along with Northrop Grumman’s flight autonomy hardware and integration expertise, during flight demonstrations set for this year.