Drone Wars Moving Closer to Reality

Drone Wars Moving Closer to Reality
Heating up the UAV debate again, a mid-April experiment demonstrated that a battle-damaged combat drone could deal with the simulated hit and land autonomously – within a few feet of its intended touch-down point. Defense Tech readers will remember the argument made by retired Air Force colonel Tom Ehrhard a couple weeks ago that the Navy should be concentrating more on developing combat UAVs in order to maintain the “persistence” over the battlefield that every ground commander is asking for. Ironically, the flight test – sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Agency and conducted at Aberdeen proving ground on April 19 – used a scaled down version of an F/A-18. Engineers created the in-flight damage by ejecting an aileron from the drone’s wing. The navigation systems and in-flight controls adjusted, bringing the pilotless plane safely back to Earth. A release from the flight control system’s developer, Athena Technologies Inc., stated: Damage tolerance is an enabling capability for increasing the mission reliability of UAVs and Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) operating in hazardous and high-threat environments. The technology provides for real-time autonomous accommodation of damage, followed by an adaptation process that alters the flight control system to compensate for the effects of the damage. Watch the in-flight videos of the experiment HERE and HERE. Admittedly, this is a small step with a limited impact on just one area of concern over the UCAV concept. But it’s steps like these that could bring aerial robot wars to our enemy’s skies sooner than one might imagine.