DARPA’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System program completed the first flight without a pilot onboard an UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter. (Image courtesy of DARPA)
WASHINGTON — At this year’s Project Convergence, the US Army is once again experimenting with its autonomous Black Hawk that could be the future of its venerable Black Hawk fleet — this time without safety pilots and with new payloads.
“My requirement was ‘don’t even bring it if it can’t be flown fully autonomous,'” said Lt. Gen. Thomas Todd, deputy commanding general for acquisition and systems and chief innovation officer at Army Futures Command, told reporters on Monday. “The point being that we have to take a step every year. We have to push ourselves to take steps.”
The Army’s experiments autonomous Black Hawk program started under a DARPA project called Black Hawk Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS), in which Black Hawk manufacturer Sikorsky developed a software to fly the bird without an on-board pilot. At last year’s Project Convergence, the helicopter flew autonomous, simulated resupply missions with on-board safety pilots.
This year, the Army said it was is looking to continue to mature those capabilities. Maj. Gen. Miles Brown, commanding general of the Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command, told reporters that the Black Hawk is being flown with medical and logistics “packages” at this year’s series of experiments, but didn’t go into further detail. Todd added that the Black Hawk had flown at “ranges we have not previously seen with payloads we have no previously seen.”
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The Army views the ALIAS software as a potentially life-saving capability, allowing the service to send pilot-less helicopters into dangerous areas to resupply forward troops or evacuate wounded soldiers. It would also allow helicopters to even take off in bad weather conditions without endangering pilots. The mission sets at Project Convergence will continue to inform the service’s leaders about the future of autonomous helicopters after ALIAS’s first fully pilot-less flight earlier this year.
“This whole idea of being able to launch an aircraft in all weather, in a contested environment — a high threat environment — and deliver key critical supplies to our soldiers in need is huge for us,” Todd said.
As for Sikorsky, the company believes that the ALIAS autonomy software will be a critical component of modernizing the Black Hawk across coming decades.
“We’re actually spending quite a bit of our research and development dollars on this to continue to develop this technology to modernize the Black Hawk,” said Jay Macklin, director of Sikorsky’s Future Vertical Lift business development.
While the Black Hawk is being replaced in the Army’s fleet by the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), the airframe could be around until the 2070s. (Sikorsky is competing against Bell Textron for the FLRAA contract). Macklin said the company is continuing to work with the Army on upgrades to the Black Hawk to ensure that it’s equipped with the technology — like sensors and payloads — to ensure that the helicopter fits into the Pentagon’s vision of all-domain operations, and integrates into the next-generation of Army rotorcraft.
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“The question is how do you make an enduring fleet aircraft capable [enough] to be relevant and be able to operate in that automate operations environment?” Macklin said.
To continue modernizing the Black Hawk fleet, the company will integrate the Improved Turbine Engine onto the bird, giving the aircraft more range and fuel efficiency. The autonomy software will be another critical piece of the upgrades, reducing the burden on pilots as they try to fly the aircraft with the massive amounts of information coming into the cockpit from future sensors.
Macklin said the company is also working to make the Black Hawk compliant with the Army’s Modular Open Systems Architecture, which allows the service to easily upgrade aircraft in the future, particularly with systems that will improve aircraft survivability or maintain its connection to the network.
“When the Army briefs the Black Hawk will be around till 2070 and first unit equipped is 2030 for future vertical lift, that’s 30-40 years of interoperability,” Macklin said. “So we’re saying the enduring fleet must be interoperable with future vertical lift.”
Breaking Defense’s Jaspreet Gill contributed to this report.
