DARPA flies/tests FSF Blackhawk helicopter

[JulienW]

For the first time DARPA has test flown a Full Self Flying (ALIAS) Blackhawk. It flew this weekend for 30 minutes at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

"The aim of the ALIAS program, say DARPA officials, is to support execution of an entire mission from takeoff to landing -- including autonomously handling contingency events such as aircraft system failures -- employing easy-to-use interfaces that facilitate supervisor-ALIAS interaction.

Musk and I will be surprised if the entire military fleet isn't Full Self Flying by the end of the year.

Great, DARPA Just Flew a Black Hawk Helicopter With Nobody In It

The agency completed a 30-minute autonomous test flight over Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

gizmodo.com

 

[cobra]

Nah, Musk not surprised:

Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout - Wikipedia

Navy already has 23 autonomous heli's in service, if this count is correct...

Sadly, looks like they lost one too... Maybe they need updated FSD?

Unmanned helicopter crashes into LCS after taking off from the ship

 

[JulienW]

Nah, Musk not surprised:

Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout - Wikipedia

Navy already has 23 autonomous heli's in service, if this count is correct...

Sadly, looks like they lost one too... Maybe they need updated FSD?

Unmanned helicopter crashes into LCS after taking off from the ship

Those are drones and not fully autonomous. They are flown by human controllers.

Edit\Analogy: The Fire Scouts are a L2 and the DARPA is a L5.

 

[qdeathstar]

Flying autonomously is much easier than driving autonomousy….

 

[mycroftxxx]

Those are drones and not fully autonomous. They are flown by human controllers.

Edit\Analogy: The Fire Scouts are a L2 and the DARPA is a L5.

They are not “flown” by human controllers; an MQ-8B/C can accomplish its full mission with a handful of button clicks from the operator. The operator basically tells the aircraft it is cleared to start its engine, launch, execute its mission, approach the ship, and land. Many of these steps could be automated further, but the Navy doesn‘t want to spend money to rewrite the procedures and train the crews.

 

[JulienW]

They are not “flown” by human controllers; an MQ-8B/C can accomplish its full mission with a handful of button clicks from the operator. The operator basically tells the aircraft it is cleared to start its engine, launch, execute its mission, approach the ship, and land. Many of these steps could be automated further, but the Navy doesn‘t want to spend money to rewrite the procedures and train the crews.

Again it is 100% monitored, the responsibility of and under the control of remote human pilots (actually at least 2 different pilots) at all times (a lot like we FSD Beta testers). This is equivalent to a L2 car and not the same as what DARPA demonstrated. Also what DARPA is demonstrating is a whole different level of full autonomy (like L5 in cars) with no pilot involved or monitoring. Here is a link to a better article about the DARPA flight.

DARPA flies Black Hawk autonomously, no pilots on board

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) flew a UH-60A Black Hawk, retrofitted with Sikorsky's Matrix technology, autonomously, without pilots on board for the first time.

www.flightglobal.com