Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin firm, has obtained a $6 million award from the Protection Superior Analysis Tasks Company (DARPA) to put in the corporate’s ALIAS/MATRIX™ flight autonomy system onto the U.S. Military’s experimental fly-by-wire UH-60M Black Hawk® helicopter. Designated MX, the upgraded plane will allow the U.S. Military Fight Capabilities Improvement Command (DEVCOM) to check and consider a variety of autonomy capabilities, from single pilot operation to totally uninhabited flight.
“Autonomy-enabled plane will scale back pilot workload, dramatically enhance flight security, and provides battle commanders the pliability to carry out advanced missions in contested and congested battlespace, day or evening in all climate situations,” mentioned Wealthy Benton, Sikorsky vice chairman and common supervisor. “Troopers will depend on Black Hawk helicopters into the 2070s, and modernizing the plane at the moment pays dividends for many years throughout Military Aviation’s present and future plane.”
The MATRIX autonomy system types the core of DARPA’s ALIAS (Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System) program. As a part of ALIAS in 2020, Sikorsky offered the {hardware} and engineering help so as to add fly-by-wire flight controls to the MX plane. When mixed with the MATRIX autonomy system, the MX plane will likely be a near-exact copy of Sikorsky’s UH-60A fly-by-wire Optionally Piloted Black Hawk helicopter, the corporate’s flying lab that has examined MATRIX autonomy over tons of of flight hours.
Sikorsky will combine the MATRIX system into the MX helicopter in 2025. The plane will allow DEVCOM to discover and mature the sensible purposes and potential idea of operations of a scalable autonomy system. Analysis will embrace evaluation of various sensor suites to understand and keep away from threats, obstacles and terrain, and develop requirements and system specs interfaced with the MATRIX system and a fly-by-wire flight management system.
In July 2024, Sikorsky and DARPA demonstrated to U.S. navy service personnel and senior Division of Protection officers how the Optionally Piloted Black Hawk helicopter can simply be flown and managed by an operator within the cabin, or on the bottom by coming into excessive stage mission objectives through a pill.
These current demonstrations constructed on autonomous flights at Venture Convergence 2022, when Sikorsky and DARPA efficiently demonstrated to the U.S. Military how the Optionally Piloted Black Hawk helicopter, working with out people on board, can safely and reliably carry out inner and exterior cargo resupply missions.
Autonomous capabilities corresponding to MATRIX expertise are a key a part of Lockheed Martin’s twenty first Century Safety® imaginative and prescient, which incorporates modernizing the Black Hawk helicopter to remain forward of latest and rising threats.
For added data, go to our autonomy web site.
About Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is a world protection expertise firm driving innovation and advancing scientific discovery. Our all-domain mission options and twenty first Century Safety® imaginative and prescient speed up the supply of transformative applied sciences to make sure these we serve all the time keep forward of prepared. Extra data at LockheedMartin.com.
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