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Successful demonstrations of full-sized helicopters with supervisory ground operators and autonomous

flight controls promise far more capable unmanned and optionally manned rotorcraft in the future. With people in the loop, the US Marine Corps Cargo Unmanned Aircraft System (CUAS) deployed to Afghanistan in late 2011 flew 1,821 sorties before the unmanned Lockheed Martin/Kaman K-MAX returned to the United States early this year. From 2011 to 2013, the Army Autonomous Technologies for Unmanned Air Systems (ATUAS) program enhanced the Marine CUAS with sensors and processors for the helicopter to pick its own landing zone (LZ) amid obstacles. The Office of Naval Research in 2013 and 2014 put the Kaman K-MAX and Boeing Little Bird at the service of ground operators with minimal training for Phase I Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) demonstrations. Phase II matures AACUS technology, and Phase III puts it on a bigger helicopter – possibly an Army Chinook. Sikorsky meanwhile flies its S-76 Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft (SARA) on company funds and plans to market UH-60A Black Hawks certified for autonomous flight. Chief engineer Dr. Igor Cherepinsky explains, “The UH-60A will be optionally piloted. It will be fully qualified to have a pilot in it, even though the pilot may not be flying it in a conventional sense.”

The payoff of unmanned rotorcraft in combat theaters seems clear. Lockheed Martin notes that two CUAS helicopters hauled 4.1 million pounds (1860 t) of cargo in Afghanistan. “What it really equates to in convoys is probably about 900 vehicles in total that would be doing this,” says unmanned K-MAX business development manager Jon McMillen. Resupply via typical ground route in Afghanistan took 10 to 17 hours, and ambush time multiplied by the number of Marines in a truck convoy meant

two unmanned helicopters averted 46,000 hours of combat exposure. “If I would look at a single metric, I’d look at effectiveness – the 1,900 missions and 4.1 million pounds really equates to getting people out of harm’s way; and you did it in a cost-effective fashion.” Kaman and Lockheed Martin sustained CUAS helicopters with just 1.4 maintenance manhours per flight hour and figure costs around $1,300 per hour. One aircraft crashed, reportedly in adverse wind conditions, but the Naval

Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) expects it will be repaired soon. “It’s a very repairable asset,” observes Mr. McMillen.

The payoff of more autonomous flight controls built into more sophisticated manned helicopters may be more complicated. The AACUS demonstration laser-radar (LADAR/LIDAR) alone cost about $270,000, and the ONR program manager envisions an autonomy kit flying an expensive CH-53K. Sikorsky marketers have long suggested standby autonomous flight controls that can be switched on to go it alone or fly a manned helicopter into Degraded Visual Environments or “hot” LZs. Transitioning the technology from SARA to a Black Hawk for sale requires refinement and investment. “The UH-60A will be a product prototype,” notes Mr. Cherepinsky. “Things will get smaller and lighter and get put into the UH-60A in a more product-like manner. . . . This is really meant to be a reliable product with 107 [1 in 10 million] aircraft-level and 109 [1 in a billion] system-level reliability. Those are standard levels for any aircraft.”

CUAS On-Call

Marine Corps Headquarters credits the CUAS K-MAX with an average Mission Capable

Rate better than 91% in Operation Enduring Freedom. (See “Evolving Autonomy,” Vertiflite, Jan-Feb 2013.) Rotating detachments from Unmanned Air Vehicle Squadrons VMU-1, -2, and -3 totaled 2,097 flight hours in-theater. They flew the same two helicopters until the mishap in June 2013 and continued with a single aircraft thereafter. On February 23 and 25, 2014, that CUAS K-MAX flew eight sorties and more than seven hours each day.

CUAS detachments at Camps Dwyer and Bastion in Helmand Province remained at 12 to 14 contractors and three to six Marines over the extended deployment. The early Concept

Autonomous AdvancesParallel government and industry demonstrations advance pieces of helicopter autonomy and build

a foundation for optionally-manned rotorcraftBy Frank Colucci

The Lockheed Martin/Kaman optionally manned K-MAX proved and expanded the CUAS Concept Of Operations in Afghanistan, and provided the baseline for Army ATUAS and Navy AACUS autonomy demonstrations. (Lockheed Martin)

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develop CONOPS. Capt. Jeff Dodge, Navy and Marine Corps Multi-Mission Tactical UAS program manager at NAVAIR explains, “There has not been a decision to initiate a program of record for a Cargo Unmanned system. The initial six-month deployment included an evaluation of K-MAX’s deployed operations capability, leading to follow-on decisions to keep the UAS deployed. This information was also incorporated in and used to inform a Cargo UAS Program of Record Study and Capabilities Based Assessment.”

Autonomous Army and Navy

Capt. Dodge notes, “NAVAIR has no plans at this time to integrate any other systems or sensors on

the unmanned K-MAX.” However, the US Army’s Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) and US Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) each demonstrated sensors and systems for autonomous unmanned helicopters. From July 2011 to November 2013, AATD used another K-MAX with CUAS hardware and software for the ATUAS Joint Capabilities Technology

Cobras.” Night operations became the norm. With Marines withdrawing from Afghanistan, resupply missions changed to retrograde movements to recover equipment. CUAS sorties morphed from regimented contractor flight plans approved by Marine commanders to reactive flights with changing LZs. “At the other end, we actually had a Marine playing spotter or taking control of the UAV,” says Mr. McMillen. “They had a small control station and they could do the final delivery.”

The Marines and NAVAIR developed safety standards for people to work under a hovering UAV. The CUAS mishap fielded a mini-simulator and software changes that give Air Vehicle Operators more feedback. The unmanned K-MAX acquired hot refueling capability and a beacon homing system, but Kaman’s four-load carousel saw little use in retrograde missions.

NAVAIR has the CUAS air vehicles, ground control stations, and supporting equipment in storage at the Lockheed-Martin facility in Owego, New York. The government-industry team looks for more demonstration opportunities in 2015 to support emerging requirements and further

of Operations (CONOPS) used the unmanned helicopters to resupply Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) within 10 to 30 nm (18 to 55 km) of the Main Operating Base. “It expanded out beyond what they had originally planned,” notes Jon McMillen. “This was originally a six-month deployment. They decided not just to use this as a test, but in real-world missions.” The longest CUAS sortie reached 73 nm (135 km) on a 1.8 hour mission. On December 22, 2013, the unmanned K-MAX delivered its heaviest single load – 4,500 lb (2 t).

Satellite communications stretched K-MAX command-and-control beyond line-of-sight, and the unmanned helicopter acquired an auxiliary fuel tank to reach more FOBs. The CUAS mission itself extended to unsurveyed sites with a ground operator to designate an LZ, and Marines authorized to hook-up sling loads. According to Mr. McMillen, “It went from a well-defined mission to small outposts to provide resupply to [serving] very, very small squads of Marines and forces there. All of that control structure had to change. They started to integrate the K-MAX with their air tasking orders. It was no longer this science project on the side; it was moving real things. It became, ‘Do I use K-Max to go into a hot zone or a [CH-] ’53?’”

Operational acceptance drove tactics. Mr. McMillen says, “You never think of having unmanned assets followed by a bunch of manned assets, but in a couple of cases, we had unmanned cargo deliveries flying with armed escorts –

Aurora Flight Sciences uses the Boeing Unmanned Little Bird as the platform for its TALOS autonomy system, part of AACUS Phase 1 testing. (Aurora)

Aurora Flight Sciences hosted its AACUS app on an iPad Mini tablet computer. (Aurora)

16 VERTIFLITE January/February 2015

same field operator would have limited supervisory control of the aircraft via the tablet. Again, it’s designed to enable any Marine to request supplies and supervise that delivery via tablet with minimal training.”

AACUS Phase I flight demonstrations at Quantico, Virginia in February and March of this year saw Aurora Flight Sciences fly the company’s Tactical Aerial Logistics System (TALOS) on the Boeing Unmanned Little Bird, with Lockheed Martin exercise its Open-Architecture Planning and Trajectory Intelligence for Managing Unmanned Systems (OPTIMUS) on the Kaman K-MAX. Each system drew on a scanning LIDAR to survey LZs and detect obstacles, three

EO/IR cameras to detect ground marker panels and flares, and a radar altimeter.

AACUS field operators received just 15 to 30 minutes training on an Apple iPad Mini. The hands-off aircraft flew from Initial Point to Landing Point in under five minutes and navigated around a pre-planned No-Fly zone. They aborted landings per field operator commands and selected alternate landing points after operators rejected autonomous selections. The demonstrators also navigated around

unplanned No-Fly zones issued enroute, and they aborted landings when communications were lost with the field operator. Tablet applications initiated the support request and showed the field operator Estimated Time of Arrival and cargo load-out along with simple control functions – Landing Approval, Abort, or No Fly Zone. AACUS sensors were not visible to safety pilots in either cockpit, and most data were stored on-board. “We’re moving terabytes of information,” acknowledges Mr. Snell. “There’s no way TCL [Tactical Common Link] can handle that.”

Aurora Flight Sciences integrated its TALOS computer on the Little Bird with under-nose sensors via an Open System interface. The computer provided trajectory information based on sensor input and mission intent, and the

as it’s flying, it re-plans its own route,” explains Ms. Condon. ATUAS software meanwhile tested multi-vehicle control in simulations. “What it did was ensure no high-risk activities were happening at the same time. It sort of de-conflicted them. A lot of that is how you present information to the ground guy. How much you show the operator is really the challenge.”

Current ATUAS efforts aim at a market-based mission planner to optimize plans with reduced operator workload. Simulations continue to the end of Fiscal 2015. “All the software was developed with an Open interface,” concludes Ms. Condon. “We’re taking all of the software and making it

FACE [Future Airborne Capability Environment]-conformant, so it can be ported to any other FACE-conforming architecture – optionally piloted or unmanned. It can go in pieces.”

Where the Army ATUAS avoided obstacles to hook sling loads without landing, ONR looked for unmanned helicopters to put wheels on the ground and respond to simple commands from an LZ operator without lengthy training. The Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) began as an Innovative Naval Prototype program in Fiscal 2012. ONR program manager Max Snell explains, “AACUS is designed to allow a minimally trained field operator to submit an Assault Support Request via tablet [computer]. In response, an autonomous unmanned rotary wing aircraft will deliver the supplies, and that

Demonstration (JCTD). “We actually took the Marine Corps system as our baseline and added six technologies to it,” says ATUAS JCTD Technical Manager Sara Condon.

The CUAS beacon delivery system introduced in Afghanistan could bring the unmanned helicopter within 1 m (3 ft) of the marked target, but it was blind; a new, down-facing, three-dimensional LIDAR from Fairchild Controls enabled the ATUAS demonstrator to approach the LZ and avoid obstacles. “It was all software on the mission management computer,” explains Ms. Condon. “We just modified what the Marine Corps already had.”

A high-definition Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) from Advanced Optical Systems payload further enhanced autonomous situational awareness, while satellite radio simultaneously streamed imagery up through the K-MAX rotors to ground operators. “You have to time it such that it shoots the packets [of data] as the rotor blades pass,” notes Ms. Condon. ATUAS sensors were integrated with a “smart” hook and receptacle for autonomous retrograde capability to find and pick up payloads without operator intervention. The aircraft descended to a GPS-defined ingress point at around 300 ft (90 m), where it could locate the payload beacon. It flew itself to the load and drove the smart hook into the load receptacle in different scenarios. “We had several CONEX boxes or cargo containers set up like a courtyard,” recalls Ms. Condon. “We could locate the courtyard, the center of the courtyard . . . . We pulled a box through the delivery location, and the aircraft avoided the moving object.”

Meanwhile, dynamic re-planning software enabled the ATUAS helicopter to change path based in part on Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) and stored performance tables. “If the operator were to give it a no-fly zone or update the delivery location

The Aurora TALOS system interfaced with a LIDAR and EO/IR sensors for AACUS demonstration flights. (Aurora)

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– less than a 1 ft [0.3 m] circle in winds from 12 gusting to 28 [kt, or 22 to 52 km/hr].”

SARA Phase I helicopter had no perception sensors. “That was all about fly-by-wire, GPS, and other typical FBW sensors,” notes Mr. Cherepinsky. Phase II now underway integrates LIDAR, vision sensors, and other inputs, but Sikorsky declines to identify sensor suppliers. “It is not an entirely off-the-shelf LIDAR. . . . It does have pretty good range. We are aiming a producing a reliable, certifiable system that we can put on our commercial and military products. It’s designed for approved levels of redundancy with a pedigree with can certify and qualify, and it’s cost-competitive.”

Details of the host computer remain proprietary. “We have a partner we’ve integrated the system with,” acknowledges Mr. Cherepinsky. “It’s a computing cluster on the aircraft. It’s fairly high power, but not out of the realm of what one would expect to qualify on our civil or military products. It also has some redundancy.”

Sikorsky will not disclose the number of SARA Phase 2 hours flown so far, but the autonomous aircraft has picked out an LZ. “There were obstacles, but we’re not disclosing what and how. . . . We have quite a long plan of research that takes us through a typical set of helicopter tasks. We started with autonomous LZ detection and we’ll move down through pilot-intensive tasks as prioritized by our customers.” The optionally manned Black Hawk announced this May should fly in 18 to 24 months. Mr. Cherepinsky concludes, “The timeline is similar to what we planned for SARA, subject to customer interest – we have quite a bit.”

man-portable Ground Control Station (GCS). The UH-60MU could deliver sling loads accurately for an engineer on the ground. “That did not have perception sensors,” explains Sikorsky engineer Igor Cherepinsky. “It had the basic MU sensor complement plus autonomy. The main goal was to show a non-pilot could operate this vehicle with a minimal amount of training.” A follow-on demonstration with the Carnegie Melon National Robotics Center calls for the hands-off helicopter to deliver a 4,000 lb (1.8 t) Unmanned Ground Vehicle in 2015.

Sikorsky meanwhile continues Matrix autonomy developments on the fly-by-wire S-76 SARA first flown in July 2013. Phase 1 testing concluded late that year with an autonomous takeoff, flight around the landing pattern, and return to the airport at West Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Cherepinsky says, “The biggest achievement is we took a conventional helicopter and installed our MATRIX kit into it to demonstrate a full-authority, autonomous fly-by-wire helicopter. . . . We could hold a very tight hover

flight control system used the data to generate flight commands. ONR selected Aurora to continue with AACUS Phase II begun in April 2014. Phase II plans more testing in Virginia and Arizona to expand and mature the technologies with the ability to detect and avoid smaller obstacles, classify terrain, and operate with GPS and communications denied. The field operator application will migrate from an iOS-based tablet to an OpenGL-based device. ONR also intends to work with AATD and other Army organizations on AACUS Phase III, and plans call for the autonomous flight technology to graduate to a CH-47D or some other big platform. According to Max Snell, “Part of this is selling this. . . . What we’re doing at Quantico gets people’s attention.”

SARA’s Solutions

CUAS, ATUAS, and AACUS all interfaced autonomous flight solutions with mechanical flight

controls. Sikorsky Aircraft meanwhile worked with the Army Aviation and Missile Research Development and Engineering Center (AMRDEC) in Huntsville, Alabama to demonstrate autonomous flight with fly-by-wire flight controls, first on the JUH-60A RASCAL and subsequently on a UH-60M Upgrade (UH-60MU) Black Hawk. In March, the Manned/Unmanned Resupply Aerial Lifter (MURAL) demonstration put the UH-60MU under the control of Sikorsky Matrix autonomy software and a

The Manned/Unmanned Resupply Aerial Lifter (MURAL) demonstration put a fly-by-wire UH-60MU under the control a man-portable Ground Control Station (GCS). Sikorsky plans to market optionally manned Black Hawks with MATRIX control technologies coupled with mechanical flight controls. (Sikorsky Aircraft)

The Sikorsky S-76 SARA testbed ties Matrix autonomy technologies to a fly-by-wire flight control system. Phase 2 testing included LiDAR and EO/IR sensors to give the autonomous flight controls situational awareness. (Sikorsky Aircraft).