The Army’s most iconic helicopter is about to go pilotless.
The U.S. Army and defense contractor Sikorsky Aircraft demonstrated hover and flight capability in an “optionally piloted” version of the Black Hawk helicopter last month. It’s part of the Army’s effort to reduce troops and costs, in this case by letting the five-ton helicopter carry out autonomous expeditionary and resupply operations.
Sikorsky has been working on the project since 2007 and convinced the Army’s research department to bankroll further development last year.
“Imagine a vehicle that can double the productivity of the Black Hawk in Iraq and Afghanistan by flying with, at times, a single pilot instead of two, decreasing the workload, decreasing the risk, and at times when the mission is really dull and really dangerous, go it all the way to fully unmanned,” said Chris Van Buiten, Sikorsky’s vice president of Technology and Innovation.
The Optionally Piloted Black Hawk (OPBH) operates under Sikorsky’s Manned/Unmanned Resupply Aerial Lifter (MURAL) program, which couples the company’s advanced Matrix aviation software with its man-portable Ground Control Station (GCS) technology. Matrix, introduced a year ago, gives rotary and fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft a high level of system intelligence to complete missions with little human oversight.
“The autonomous Black Hawk helicopter provides the commander with the flexibility to determine crewed or un-crewed operations, increasing sorties while maintaining crew rest requirements,” said Mark Miller, Sikorsky vice president of Research and Engineering, in a statement. “This allows the crew to focus on the more ‘sensitive’ operations, and leaves the critical resupply missions for autonomous operations without increasing fleet size or mix.”
The autonomous Black Hawk fits into the larger trend of the military finding technological ways of reducing troop numbers. Earlier this month, Darpa announced a new program called Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) that will develop a portable, drop-in autopilot to reduce the number of crew members on board, making a single pilot a “mission supervisor.”
The Army’s Aviation Development Directorate (ADD) chief, William Lewis, said the agency was moving in the same direction by “focus[ing] on developing, demonstrating and applying critical technologies that enhance the capability, affordability, readiness and safety” of the Army’s aircraft.
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