Aeroflightdynamics: USRA Team Supports the US Army Project Convergence Capstone 4 Event Showcasing Automated Sling Load Delivery using the Mission Adaptive Autonomy System
March 2024
USRA Aeroflightdynamics Human Systems Interface (HSI) Software Development Task Lead Nathan Mielcarek and his team have successfully supported the US Army Project Convergence Capstone 4 event at Fort Irwin, CA during the weeks of March 11th and March 18th, a joint and multination demonstration including participants from the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Marine Corps, US Space Force, and allied countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France, and Japan. The capstone event helps assess how technology and Human Machine Integration can enhance cross-domain military operations and reduce risk to soldiers.
The USRA HSI team provided important support to this event, which involved showcasing the ongoing rotorcraft autonomy capabilities, and assisted with the development and testing of a modified version of the Mission Adaptive Autonomy (MAA) system that is able to perform automated sling load deliveries and drop-offs at specific locations within the Fort Irwin area. The research aircraft used was an EH-60L Black Hawk helicopter with advanced partial authority flight control laws to control the autonomy and a Burns Technologies LIDAR sensor mounted on the front of the aircraft used to scan the flight path and drop-off locations so it will automatically avoid terrain and obstacles while in flight.
The HSI team also continued to develop and upgrade the Integrated Cueing Environment (ICE) software used as the primary flight display for the pilots and as a three-dimensional moving map display used to render the flight route, control the autonomy modes, and to select the flight routes calculated by the autonomous system. A software program to track the attached load as it was carried underneath the helicopter using a single downward-facing camera was created by USRA Software Engineer Joseph Gunderson and used during the flight tests to determine if the detected angles could be used to inform the autonomy about the dynamics and position of the load to avoid large angular motions. While on site at Fort Irwin during the flight testing, a new feature was integrated into the moving map software which rendered specific Restricted Operating Zone (ROZ) areas within the flight test area by translating data files received by the flight crew each day into geographic symbols depicted on the map so the pilots could avoid flying through those areas.
The next phase for the rotorcraft autonomy program will continue to improve the autonomous flight performance, examine different types of sensors used to collect the data and imagery for the automatic route planning tools, and determine if autonomy can be used within multi-aircraft operations where a single pilot could control or monitor several helicopters flying in close formations. Improved and enhanced pilot cueing will continue to be an important research topic to enable the pilots to accomplish additional tasks and improve their situational awareness without increasing their overall workload.
