DARPA’s ALIAS Program completes Maiden Flight of Unmanned Black Hawk Helicopter

DARPA Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program has completed the maiden flight of a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter without anyone onboard.

Sikorsky completed 30-minutes of unmanned flight with the optionally piloted vehicle (OPV) over the U.S. Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky on February 5th with another flight on February 7th.

The helicopter was with Sikorsky MATRIX autonomy technologies that form the core of ALIAS and can change the way aviators and air crews execute their missions by providing assistance when flying with limited visibility or without communications.

“With reduced workloads pilots can focus on mission management instead of the mechanics,” DARPA quoted Stuart Young, program manager in DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office. 

“With ALIAS, the Army will have much more operational flexibility. This includes the ability to operate aircraft at all times of the day or night, with and without pilots, and in a variety of difficult conditions, such as contested, congested, and degraded visual environments,” Young added

ALIAS is a flexible, extensible automation architecture for existing manned aircraft that enables safe reduced crew operations, which facilitates the addition of high levels of automation into existing aircraft. It also provides a platform for integrating additional automation or autonomy capabilities tailored for specific missions.