Autonomous Huey

A modified unmanned Bell UH-1H Huey demonstrated capabilities for autonomous flight operations at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, on December 13, 2017, using technologies developed by the joint US Marine Corps and Office of Naval Research (ONR) Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) programme, with Aurora Flight Sciences, recently acquired by Boeing, participating.

Receiving ground commands to take off and land, but otherwise operating as an autonomous aircraft, the UH-1H was not remotely piloted, but used inputs from onboard sensors to its guidance system, like a guided missile. Its guidance was primarily provided by a Velodyne LIDAR (laser pulse-based radar) sensor, like many self-driving ground vehicles. This provided inputs to an onboard guidance system using artificial intelligence algorithms to generate flight system commands. An onboard safety pilot monitored flight commands displayed in the cockpit and controlled the engine.

The demonstration included the helicopter conducting simulated resupply and flight operations while avoiding ground obstacles. This included a simulated resupply mission from a main operating base to two forward landing zones.

An Aurora Flight Sciences statement said: “AACUS is an aircraft-agnostic hardware and software suite which enables a Marine on the ground to request a supply delivery via helicopter from a handheld tablet, requiring no advanced training to operate the system.”

The company said the December flights, “served as the final demonstration to ONR, Department of Defense representatives and other senior officials, the culmination of a highly successful five-year Innovative Naval Prototype (INP 2) programme. Having completed the third and final phase of the programme, AACUS will now transition to the Marine Corps for experimentation and potential acquisition.” David C Isby