DARPA's Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) program has completed a first ever flight of a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter without anyone onboard. Sikorsky carried out 30-minutes of uninhabited flight with the optionally piloted vehicle over the U.S. Army installation at Fort Campbell, Kentucky on February 5th. An additional uninhabited flight took place two days later.

The Black Hawk was retrofitted 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.

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.

"With reduced workloads pilots can focus on mission management instead of the mechanics," says Stuart Young, program manager in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office. "This unique combination of autonomy software and hardware will make flying both smarter and safer."

ALIAS aims to support execution of an entire mission from takeoff to landing, including autonomously handling contingency events such as aircraft system failures. Easy-to-use interfaces facilitate supervisor-ALIAS interaction.

"With ALIAS, the Army will have much more operational flexibility," adds Young. "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."

The Army is currently exploring potential use cases for technologies such as ALIAS, including those outlined in the U.S. Army's Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program.

Within the next month, the ALIAS program plans to conduct the first flight of a fly-by-wire M-model Black Hawk at Fort Eustis, Virginia.