WASHINGTON — Robinson Helicopter today announced a new company branch dubbed Robinson Unmanned, where the helo company will partner with subsidiary Ascent AeroSystems to provide what it called a “full suite” of remotely piloted and autonomous drones for commercial and military partners.
Robinson Unmanned will provide Group 1 through Group 4 drones, excluding only the largest Group 5 category. Currently Ascent produces the Group 1 and 2 drones, including systems involved in the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program. But with the new arrangement, all drones will fall under Robinson Unmanned.
The Group 3 and 4 drones will be derived from R44 and R66 model helos, much like how Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky is turning some of its Black Hawks into Group 4 unmanned platforms with its UHawk program.
“We wanted to draw on the Robinson heritage, the Robinson name, and make sure that folks understand we’re here to stay,” David Smith, CEO and President of Robinson Helicopters said in an interview. “This will be the next 100 years, probably, of business and pursuit for us in parallel to our helicopters, using all the stuff we’ve built here.”
Paul Fermo, current president of Ascent, will serve as the president of Robinson Unmanned, according to a company press release.
Beyond Ascent’s participation in Drone Dominance, Smith said Robinson Unmanned is currently involved with the Defense Department for a “developmental program” for its R66 Turbinetruck, which the company describes as a “next-generation” unmanned cargo helo designed for defense and logistics operations in contested environments. Through the developmental program, Robinson Unmanned will incorporate Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomy suite in a “similar manner” to the UHawk, a Robinson Unmanned spokesperson told Breaking Defense.
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“I think it says a lot that two people that could be considered competitors are collaborating on this very important mission for the Department of War,” Smith said in the interview. “We want to save lives, and I think this is really a lot about the lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that led to so many injuries and casualties for logistics chain resupply and all the convoys that were targets of the adversaries.”
Rich Benton, vice president and general manager for Sikorsky, told Breaking Defense in a statement that the Turbinetruck and the UHawk programs will serve as “complementary bookends” to the commercial and defense industry, proving “seamless capability wherever the mission demands.”
“With every new platform we welcome into the MATRIX family, we widen the network of uncrewed systems to serve a variety of civil and military missions,” he added.
The spokesperson added that Robinson Unmanned will also inherit Ascent’s Drone Dominance effort. Ascent was one of 25 companies involved in Gauntlet 1 of the competition where military operators flew small, low-cost drones to help decide who receives a share of orders expected to total $150 million at the end of the competition.
The program’s leaderboard shows Ascent in the number 10 slot, positioning it to receive some orders. A DoD official said last week the military would eventually purchase 30,000 unmanned systems altogether.
The NDAA-compliant Group 1 and 2 drones Robinson Unmanned will offer are:
- Helius: “a pocket-sized” UAS that delivers “rapid” aerial awareness in confined environments
- Spirit: a modular and “rugged” drone used for surveillance missions
- Spartan: a coaxial drone that has long-endurance capabilities for longer missions
Smith said he thought the timing for the new venture was “perfect.”
“Robinson Unmanned, I think, offers exactly what [Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth] is looking for, for an unconventional source of something that is born out of commercial, so [it’s] cost effective, highly scalable, all those things, and ultimately attritable.”
Though Robinson Helicopter Company has supplied helicopters to the military for decades, Robinson Unmanned marks its second recent step deeper into the defense sector. Last month, Robinson was also selected for Phase III of the Army’s Flight School Next program, the service’s new multi-faceted program to train helicopter pilots at Fort Rucker. The company is competing with its R66 model under two separate prime vendors in Lockheed Martin and M1.