The US Army sees an opportunity to retrofit some of its Black Hawk fleet with autonomous flight technologies developed in the DARPA ALIAS programme. DARPA conducted the test as part of the US Army’s Project Convergence exercises, conducted at the Yuma Proving Grounds in the southern Arizona desert.
The US military has previously flown autonomous UH-60s, but the recent tests are a further step by the army in evaluating how autonomy fits within its future flight capabilities. The demonstration was the first time the DARPA Black Hawk had flown an autonomous resupply mission. It was also the first time that the aircraft autonomously landed on an unimproved landing zone.
The army is pondering ways to incorporate DARPA’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) kit into its fleet of more than 2,200 Black Hawks. ALIAS is designed to allow even the UH-60A – the oldest model of the type, introduced in 1979 – to fly autonomously.
For the recent flight tests, DARPA imagined a scenario where a squad of US soldiers were pinned behind enemy lines; resupply flight routes were threatened by enemy anti-aircraft weapons – making the mission too dangerous for US Army pilots.
Enter the autonomous UH-60A Black Hawk, paired with two Area-I Altius-600s – small UAVs known as air-launched effects that can provide surveillance of ground targets.
While the Black Hawk was en route, the Altius-600s deployed from a launch kit bolted to the helicopter’s cabin deck, in another first for the programme.
Source: FlightGlobal