Black Hawk helicopter equipped with ALIAS completes first pilotless flight
The DARPA Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program completed the first-ever flight of a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter with no crew on board. On February 5, Sikorsky (a Lockheed Martin company) carried out a 30-minute flight with an optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) over the U.S. Army base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. An additional uncrewed flight was also conducted on February 7.
The Black Hawk was upgraded with Sikorsky MATRIX autonomy technologies, which form the basis of ALIAS and could change how aviators and flight crews perform their missions by assisting flight in low-visibility conditions or without communications.
ALIAS is a flexible, scalable automation architecture for existing manned aircraft that enables safe reduced-crew operations, making it easier to add a high level of automation to existing aircraft. It also provides a platform for integrating additional automation or autonomy capabilities tailored to specific missions.
“By reducing workload, pilots can focus on flying the aircraft rather than on its mechanics. This unique combination of autonomous software and hardware will make flight smarter and safer”
The ALIAS program drew on significant advances in aircraft automation systems over the past 50 years, as well as similar advances in unmanned aircraft. Even in the most modern automated aircraft, pilots must still operate complex interfaces and respond to unexpected situations.
ALIAS aims to support the entire mission from takeoff to landing, including autonomous handling of unexpected events such as onboard system failures. Easy-to-use interfaces make it easier for the supervisor and ALIAS to interact.
“With ALIAS, the Army will have far greater operational flexibility. This includes the ability to operate aircraft at any time of day or night, with or without pilots, and in various challenging conditions such as contested, congested and degraded visual environments”
The Army is currently studying potential uses for technologies like ALIAS, including those described in the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program. Within the next month, the ALIAS program plans to conduct the first flight of a remotely controlled M Black Hawk at Fort Eustis, Virginia.
In 2021, ALIAS was used in controlled tests accompanied by a safety pilot. The S-70 OPV Black Hawk helicopter was able to take off on its own, avoiding simulated obstacles, and then land.
Sikorsky and the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are working to significantly improve flight and operational safety so that humans and machines can work together more effectively in the field. Sikorsky is paving the way for a future in which aircraft can be operated with two, one or no pilots at any time of day or night and in various challenging scenarios.
This set of technologies is already used in Sikorsky's optionally piloted Black Hawk and in the Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft (SARA), a modified S-76B helicopter. In the helicopter developed by DARPA under the Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) and supported by Sikorsky MATRIX technology, pilots can focus on saving lives or transporting cargo rather than on the mechanics required for modern flight.
“Through the ALIAS program and our unique combination of autonomous software and hardware, we are bringing our customers one step closer to safer and smarter flight. Our ultimate goal is to deploy this technology to help meet new mission requirements, including those outlined in the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift program”
ALIAS has the potential to change how pilots and flight crews perform their critical missions: operators can fly their aircraft safely, reliably, confidently and affordably, even with reduced crews and limited visibility.
DARPA's interest in autonomous vehicles spans decades. In 2004, 2005 and 2007, the agency held the DARPA Grand Challenge. In 2004, participants were required to autonomously complete a 228-kilometer course through the desert near Primm, Nevada, but no one managed it. The distance was then shortened: to 212 km in 2005 and to 96 km in 2007.
The Grand Challenge was designed to go beyond the traditional base of defense contractors and tap the ingenuity of a broader research community. It was DARPA's first major attempt to use a prize competition to attract new performers and ideas and to encourage collaboration across different fields.
“This first competition created a community of innovators, engineers, students, programmers, off-road racers, home mechanics, inventors and dreamers who came together to make history by trying to solve a difficult technical problem. The fresh perspective they brought became the spark that drove significant progress in autonomous robotic ground vehicle technology in the years that followed”
