"Autonomous Army Helicopter Proves Ready for Action" Topic

"A Black Hawk helicopter conducted multiple operations with no pilots or crew aboard during the technology tests and demonstrations at the Army's annual Project Convergence exercise, officials announced Nov. 2.

Sikorsky and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency revealed that an uninhabited Black Hawk performed a rescue operation as well as internal and external cargo resupply missions at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, in October. The helicopter flew using Sikorsky's MATRIX autonomy system as the core of DARPA's Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System, or ALIAS, program…"

link

Main page

link

Armand

What could possibly go wrong?

This is how we get Skynet

What could possibly go wrong?

Black Hawk Down
Leave No Mind Behind.

Andrew Ng from Stanford built a really nice AI helicopter 'toy' about 15 years ago.
Autonomous Helicopters Teach Themselves to Fly Stunts – On Youtube

Not a good thing.

"Asset deemed unfit for future duties…cancelling medevac. Returning to base."

I, for one, welcome our new Helio masters!

This technology was developed in the previous millennium, and flying since 2000:

link

link

Actually, the Army will be using a simplified technology. The USN's FirrScouts can take of and land on ships underway at sea.

Rick

Yes, and as I and many have said, we will see more and AI, 'bots, etc. in battle as the tech progresses. Which seems in many cases is fairly rapid.

An "uninhabited" Black Hawk! This suggests that other Black Hawks are inhabited. So do people live in helicopters now? And I thought we had a housing shortage over here!

I think the word the writer was searching for, and failing to find, is ‘unmanned'. Honestly, the standards of literacy these days…

Arizona you say. Not to many telephone lines or forests there. Ask any helo pilot about power lines. Hope it has excellent radar?

Seems like a good idea for very dangerous, high risk missions.

The fewer people exposed to danger the better, though of course we need to ensure they can't be hacked, or captured.

I think the word the writer was searching for, and failing to find, is ‘unmanned'.

Probably avoiding such a gender-insensitive word! Unpersoned is perhaps suitable.

Good point Bill ! Don't want to hurt anyone's sensitive feelings ! 😎

Unmanned works for me.

Unpeopled? Unpersoned? But the real issue will come in deciding what pronoun to use with helicopters. Hours of training needed. Or for me, it would be years.

Helicopters in the 101 and elsewhere were referred to as "Birds" … Not he, she or it …

And yes, unmanned is the usual term, I'd think for what is a de facto drone.

Wouldn't autonomous mean it contains AI controlling it's actions? Rather than being remote controlled like drones are.
One could perhaps stretch the term to include an auto pilot level of self control.

There's so much hyperbole in that article it's difficult to tell exactly what the capability is.

The term 'uninhabited' in regard to weapon platforms seems to have been originated because of some need in military academics in the 1990's or earlier to distiguish 'unmanned' weapon platforms and such that have still a man/woman/human/whatever in the loop.
See Richard M.Clark, Lt Col, USAF: Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles – Airpower by the People, For the People, But Not with the People, Air University Press, 2000, p.343.
PDF link

"Being uninhabited is what differentiates UCAVs from today's manned combat aircraft, but uninhabited does not necessarily mean unmanned. Under most UCAV concepts there is a "man in the loop." This means there is some level of human interface with the system to make decisions at various points in the mission. The man in the loop may operate from a ground station, another aircraft, or a ship; and the amount of interface varies between different concepts. There are some who envision UCAVs as fully autonomous systems where they seek and destroy the target without any human interaction at all. This type of UCAV is truly unmanned and would rely on its own onboard systems, such as automatic target recognition (ATR), to make decisions. The point is that all UCAV concepts
call for an uninhabited aircraft, but there are different ideasas to the amount of man-in-the-loop involvement."

Interesting read, I especially like that subtitle.
The term is still used by some today.
Alas, old habits never die.

The paper references an article in Jane's Defence Weekly,
16 July 1997 by a Gourley, Scott R.
Mr. Scott doesn't look so 'woke' today.
Probably not back then either.
Mr. Scott's Twitter account

Lieutenant General Richard M.Clark neither.

Interesting … Thanks …