May 31 2016

The Inexorable Rise of Unmanned Helicopters Posted 7 years 322 days ago ago by Admin

 

 

Once the stuff of science fiction, unmanned helicopters are increasingly becoming a part of daily life. For instance, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Fire Scout unmanned helicopter program, using both the small MQ-8B and the Bell 407-derived MQ-8C, provides the Navy’s littoral combat ships (LCS) with eyes in the sky that enhance both situational awareness and precision targeting. Furthermore, the Lockheed Martin/Kaman Aerospace K-MAX unmanned helicopter has distinguished itself by flying unmanned cargo missions for the Marines in Afghanistan, and is also being configured to support civilian applications such as firefighting, forest management, humanitarian aid, and oil & gas industry support. Meanwhile, about 2,400 Yamaha RMAX remotely controlled helicopters are being employed for crop-dusting around the world. Yamaha is also teaming with Northrop Grumman to develop an autonomous RMAX for the military called the R-Bat (Rotary Bat) for intelligence gathering.These are just some of the unmanned helicopters in use today, with more in development.

Unmanned helicopters are finding their place in the multi-faceted rotorcraft workplace, especially unmanned platforms capable of self-directed flight using GPS and onboard autonomous flight control. Yet, as these unmanned aircraft become more prevalent, they are raising questions about the future of manned helicopters … and the pilots who fly them.

‘Bravo!’ Beginnings

 

The first recorded application of unmanned aircraft occurred on July 12, 1849, when Austrian troops besieging Venice attacked the city with bomb-laden balloons. Time magazine published an eyewitness account:

The balloons appeared to rise to about 4,500 ft. Then they exploded in midair or fell into the water, or blown by a sudden southeast wind, sped over the city and dropped on the besiegers. Venetians, abandoning their homes, crowded into the streets and squares to enjoy the strange spectacle. Applause was greatest when the balloons blew over the Austrian forces and exploded, and in such cases the Venetians added cries of ‘Bravo!’ and ‘Good appetite!’.

The first real unmanned helicopter was likely the Gyrodyne QH-50 DASH (Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter) in the early 1960s. It was a radio-controlled drone capable of dropping torpedoes and other munitions from U.S. Navy ships. However, the QH-50's undistinguished record led to the system being retired by the Navy later in the decade. Still, the very practical usefulness of unmanned helicopters kept designers coming up with new and better models, with the world’s militaries giving them a chance primarily as observation platforms. Successors to the QH-50 include the remotely piloted Westland Mote, Wisp, and Wildeye; the Canadair CL-227 Sentinel and Bombardier CL-327 Guardian; the SAIC/ATI Vigilante; and the Sikorsky Cypher/Cypher II.

 

The Fire Scout Program and K-MAX

Currently, the only official U.S. military deployment of unmanned helicopters is the Fire Scout Program. Still, the success of the K-MAX unmanned platform during three years of supporting the Marines in Afghanistan has brought the aircraft such respect that it is managed along with the Fire Scouts under the Navy and Marine Corps Multi-Mission Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (MMTUAS) program.

 

Capt. Jeff Dodge, MMTUAS program manager, traces the current program back to the RQ-2 Pioneer: a fixed-wing, propellor-driven surveillance drone used by the Navy, Marines, and Army from 1996 to 2007. "The Pioneers provided our ships with low-cost situational awareness in comparison to manned aircraft, but they had to be launched from catapults, rocket-assisted launches, or runways," said Dodge. "When we were looking at a second generation replacement, we wanted to use a rotary-wing platform that could take off and land on ships vertically."

Bell, Sikorsky, and a Schweizer Aircraft/Teledyne Ryan partnership competed to win the Vertical Take-Off & Landing (VTOL)-UAV contract. It called for an unmanned, remotely controlled, TV camera-equipped helicopter with a 200 pound payload, a 125 mile range, the ability to stay on station for three hours at 20,000 feet, and also the capability to land on a ship in a 29 mph wind.

Of the three bidders, the Schweizer Aircraft/Teledyne Ryan partnership won the contract in 2000, but the resulting RQ-8A Fire Scout (based on a Schweizer C330SP manned turbine helicopter) wasn’t taken into production by the Navy. Then Northrop Grumman stepped in and developed the MQ-8B Fire Scout, which can also carry weapons on its horizontal stub wings. The Army paid Northrop Grumman to build seven evaluation MQ-8Bs, but it was the Navy who subsequently contracted the company to build these platforms for active duty.

Today, Fire Scouts are operational aboard the Navy’s LCS. Fire Scouts have also launched from a variety of ships that includes frigates, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and the U.S Coast Guard national security cutter. In addition, the MQ-8B Fire Scout has been deployed to Afghanistan to counter improvised explosive devices (IEDs), flying more than 16,000 flight hours over 6,000 sorties. Northrop Grumman has integrated a multi-mode maritime radar on MQ-8Bs, and integrated/tested an onboard weapons capability—the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS). The MQ-8B has also demonstrated the ability to operate concurrently with manned aircraft.

In 2010, Northrop Grumman first flew the MQ-8C Fire Scout; an unmanned helicopter based upon the Bell 407 commercial helicopter. “Merging the unmanned control systems of the MQ-8B with the proven airframe of the Bell 407 proved to be the best combo possible,” said Dodge. “We just did a UAV brain transplant from one platform to the other, and the results have been excellent.” (Granted, it is weird to see a Bell 407 with all its windows covered with grey paint; one can’t help but feel the need to scrape clean the front windscreen!)

 

By turning a Bell 407 into a remotely controlled helicopter, Northrop Grumman has added serious payload capacity and performance to unmanned technology. The MQ-8C has completed developmental testing and operational assessment; it is ready to deploy.

Regarding the unmanned K-MAX, it is a joint venture between Kaman Aerospace and Lockheed Martin that has been under development since 1998. The platform truly started coming into its own in 2011 in Afghanistan, when Marines began using two unmanned K-MAXs to resupply troops. It is capable of carrying on a long line up to 6,000 pounds at sea level and 4,300 pounds at 15,000 feet altitude. However, this UAV is about more than altitude and payload; it flies using a mix of onboard GPS tracking and data links between the aircraft and the ground. “The K-MAX follows GPS waypoints in following missions uploaded into its flight computer, and can deliver loads up to four separate locations on a single flight,” said Terry Fogarty, director of business development for K-MAX Helicopter Programs.

 

The Marines’ two K-MAXs spent three years flying mostly at night in Afghanistan’s harsh conditions, moving more than 4.5 million pounds of payloads during thousands of flights. According to Wired.com: “The two helicopters were surprisingly reliable, largely thanks to the simplicity of the original design. At least one of them was ready to fly 94 percent of the time. The aircraft required 1.4 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight, and cost $1,300 per hour.”

With the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014, the Marines sent their much-loved K-MAXs back stateside. Again, Wired.com reported: “Lockheed is already working on a fresh project with the Army. The K-MAX will airlift the unmanned Squad Mission Support System into a mock hostile territory, to see if it’s possible to take human forces out of danger altogether.”

Fogarty is delighted with the K-MAX’s unmanned performance in Afghanistan, and the credibility it imparts to his company’s promotion of the K-MAX for unmanned firefighting, forest monitoring, oil & gas freight moving, and a host of other missions previously reserved for manned machines. “The unmanned K-MAX is well-suited for what we call ‘3D Missions’—dull, dirty, and dangerous,” said Fogarty. “Most pilots don’t want to fly 3D missions, especially at night. So it makes sense to have the K-MAX do these and other heavy lifting flights.”

At The Cutting Edge

Northrop Grumman’s and Lockheed Martin/Kaman’s success in making unmanned helicopters an accepted aerial platform has been duly noted by other manufacturers. A case in point: On March 11, 2014, Sikorsky and the U.S. Army achieved the first flight of an unmanned UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter at Sikorsky’s Development Flight Center in Florida. The Optionally Piloted Black Hawk (OPBH) demonstrator – aka Sikorsky’s Manned/Unmanned Resupply Aerial Lifter (MURAL) – was jointly controlled by its onboard Matrix Technology autonomous flight system and human-managed Ground Control Station. It demonstrated successful liftoff, hovering, cargo pickup/drop-off, and landing during the test. The Army has two UH-60s to modify and test in unmanned flight mode.

“Our Black Hawk project is called Optionally Piloted Black Hawk because it is a system designed to operate with or without a crew,” said Igor Cherepinsky, chief engineer of Sikorsky’s Autonomy Programs. “When operated with a crew onboard, the system will expand what they can do, reduce their workload, and greatly enhance safety. When the crew is not onboard, the aircraft will be able to execute missions that are either too dangerous or too dull for the human crew.”

 

“We already have civilian helicopters that execute autonomous final approaches to oil rigs in challenging IMC conditions,” Cherepinsky noted. “Take those advanced flight control systems and couple them with real-time perception tools, and we will have helicopters (and fixed-wing) able to see obstacles before they become hazardous. Missions will be executed by just choosing a mission profile, and providing destinations and arrival times.”

Another breakthrough was a January 2016 trial that demonstrated dual unmanned vehicles working in tandem. An unmanned Sikorsky UH-60MU equipped with a Matrix Technology flight control system flew an autonomous unmanned Land Tamer ground vehicle 12 miles to its mission area, then lowered the vehicle in its carrying cage at the designated coordinates. Once on the ground, the Land Tamer drove off under its own control while the UH-60MU hauled up the cage and flew off. (Watch video here.)

Unmanned helicopters are also making progress on a small scale. For instance, the Schiebel Camcopter S-100 camera observation platform can be operated in both remotely controlled and autonomous modes. “You can put a man in the loop and control the S-100 via C-band satellite, or program it using waypoints and onboard GPS control,” said Chris Day, Schiebel’s head of engineering.

 

The S-100's autonomous system is sophisticated and situationally aware. “You can get it to perform the entire mission from start to finish, ending with the S-100 hovering to a pinpoint landing,” said Day. “What we can do is currently limited by legislators who set the rules, rather than by technology.”

 

In a similar vein, Olaeris’ Aerial Electric Virtual Assistant (AEVA) helicopter is designed to support professional-grade aerial observation missions. A six-blade, remote control/autonomous rotorcraft built to pass a conventional airworthiness certification, AVEA’s 11 pound payload capacity allows it to carry all manner of cameras. Its autonomous flight system comes with sensors and intelligence designed to let the aircraft detect and avoid aerial threats. AEVA can even interact with ground-based air traffic control to stay out of manned flight paths.

Olaeris unveiled two versions of AEVA 2.0 at HAI Heli-Expo 2016. The first version is like the original electric AEVA, except its size has been reduced from a diameter of 8 feet to 6 feet. The second AEVA 2.0 is a gasoline engine/electric hybrid. It can fly for over four hours, using just a liter of standard gas per hour.

Where Do Humans Fit In?

Clearly, there are astonishing things happening in the unmanned helicopter space, particularly with proven advances in autonomous flight. Could the time be coming when unmanned helicopters do the flying while humans remain on the ground? Capt. Dodge doesn’t think so, “We’re still a long way from removing humans from the loop when it comes to flying helicopters, if indeed we ever do.” Even when unmanned autonomous helicopters become capable of fully self-controlled flight, Dodge sees a role for human pilots in the air. “Unmanned helicopters will augment manned helicopters on missions, allowing each to do what they do best in a coordinated team effort,” he said.

Schiebel’s Day agrees. “In the future, we will be able to program unmanned helicopters to fly into harm’s way on our behalf, preserving the expertise and lives of human pilots for truly complex missions, and for flying into hostile regions once they have been shown to be safe,” he said. In this future, unmanned and manned helicopters will work together; resulting in better, safer outcomes for humans who operate them both. “Ultimately, any mission that is deemed to be too dangerous, too difficult—or even too dangerously dull—for a human to fly can be achieved with an optionally piloted helicopter in autonomous mode,” said Sikorsky’s Cherepinsky.

One thing is certain: The rise of unmanned helicopters as capable multi-mission flying platforms is inexorable and unstoppable. What is uncertain is where humans will fit into this Brave New World … but fit into it, we will.