Darpa tests autonomous helicopters

Darpa (the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has unveiled the “Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System” (ALIAS), which allows helicopters to fly autonomously.

The future seems to be getting ever closer, as flying vehicles now aim to take the step towards fully autonomous driving.

Although the military already has this kind of technology in reconnaissance drones and other highly sophisticated devices, the inclusion of a helicopter that can carry passengers and fly by itself is completely new.

For now this system still requires supervision by a pilot. However, DARPA is currently focusing on automating more basic actions such as altitude hold, automatic route planning via satellite, and obstacle avoidance, among others.

The tests are being carried out with a fully modified Sikorsky S-76B helicopter. The plan is to include this kind of technology in the future in the famous Black Hawk combat helicopters at some point in 2019.

The main advantage this kind of technology brings in the military field is that in the future, helicopters will be able to fly and conduct air assaults without human intervention, which will prevent the unnecessary loss of soldiers’ lives.

Currently the project is in Phase 3. Sikorsky engineers developing ALIAS have begun integrating the system into a UH-60 Black Hawk so that, by the key date in 2019, it can carry out tests and demonstrations on its own.

Thanks to the full backing of the Army and the United States Department of Defense, Drozeski stated that the Black Hawk is the ideal platform for ALIAS to become a reality and take one more step towards the automation of air travel.

“We chose the Black Hawk as the platform we want to demonstrate the full integration of ALIAS-type capabilities, all the circuits, switches and instruments in the aircraft, so that the capability ALIAS provides to a crew member is truly like a copilot,” said Drozeski. “It can fly routes, plan routes, execute emergency procedures and do all of that perfectly.”

It seems the future of autonomous flying vehicles is getting closer every day; perhaps within 50 years this technology will be so entrenched and perfected that we won’t have to worry about anything to get anywhere.

Below we leave you this interesting video about the development of the helicopter DARPA is working on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J06OmgIOdJ4