Flight Autonomy and Cognitive Processes
Advances in computer and communications technologies have enabled the development of autonomous unmanned systems. The Vietnam conflict era remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs) were typically controlled by the manned aircraft that launched them, or by ground elements. These systems required skilled operators. Some of these systems flew rudimentary mission profiles based on analog computers, but they remained primarily hand flown throughout the majority of the mission profiles. In the 1970s the Air Force embarked on the Compass Cope program to develop a high altitude long-endurance system capable of reconnaissance at long range. The Compass Cope systems were still hand flown.
In 1988 DARPA developed the first autonomous UA, a high altitude long endurance UA called Condor, with a design goal of 150 hours at 60,000 feet. This aircraft was pre-programmed from takeoff to landing and had no direct manual inputs, e.g. no stick and rudder capability in the ground station. The system flew successfully 11 times setting altitude and endurance records. The level of autonomy in this aircraft was limited to redundancy management of subsystems and alternate runways. It demonstrated these features several times during the flight test program. Next came Global Hawk and DarkStar, which advanced autonomy almost to Level 3 (see Figure D-5); with real-time health and diagnostics and substantial improvements in adaptive behavior to flight conditions and in-flight failures.
The J-UCAS program is extending the work being accomplished by these programs, advancing the state of the art in multi-aircraft cooperation. Decisions include: coordinated navigation plan updates, communication plan reassignments, weapons allocations or the accumulation of data from the entire squadron to arrive at an updated situational assessment. Cooperation in this context applies to cooperative actions among the J-UCAS aircraft. They will have inter-aircraft data links to allow transfer of information between them and the manned aircraft. The information may include mission plan updates, target designation information, image chips and possibly other sensor data. Key mission decisions will be made based on the information passed between the systems. The J-UCAS will still have all of the subsystem management and contingency management autonomous attributes as the previous generation of UA systems. The J-UCAS program plans to demonstrate at least level 6 autonomy. Figure D-5 depicts where some UA stand in comparison to the ten levels of autonomy.
APPENDIX D – TECHNOLOGIES
Page D-9
UA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS
In response to this Roadmap’s data call, the services and other DoD agencies identified approximately 1011 funded research and development (R&D) programs and initiatives developing technologies and capabilities either for specific UA (UA “specific” programs) or broader programs pursuing technologies and capabilities applicable to manned as well as unmanned aviation (UA “applicable”). The total PB05 research investment across the DoD was approximately $2,553 M, of which approximately $1,216 M (48%) was in UA specific programs, and $1,337 M (52%) in UA applicable programs. In the latter category, spending was primarily in the areas of platform, control and payload/sensors R&D, whereas the bulk of the spending in the former UA specific category was in broad technology initiatives and weaponization.
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