Service Looks to Integrate Aircraft Technology Faster.

• Author: Machi, Vivienne
• Position: AVIATION

The Army's program executive office for aviation has stood up a new team that will work to get science and technology efforts developed more quickly by encouraging earlier and increased collaboration with industry, according to the office's leader.

The "future operations team" will focus on "identifying new technologies that the S&T community is working on and quickly transitioning them into capabilities for the warfighter," said Brig. Gen. Thomas Todd during an event at the Association of the United States Army in Arlington, Virginia. It could allow the service to synchronize its efforts with industry to develop capabilities that improve the reach, protection and lethality of its aerial platforms, he said.

The Army is facing increasing modification and obsolescence challenges with its fleet--which includes over 5,000 aircraft and was mostly designed in the 1960s and 1970s, Todd said. As industry and service partners work on new technologies--including the joint multi-role technology demonstrator program--and advancements in unmanned systems, increasing collaboration between the public and private sector will be key, speakers said.

The future operations team was stood up "to create that connective tissue that we should always have" with industry partners, Todd said.

The Army is working with a number of partners to develop capabilities that could assist operations in degraded visual environments, enable manned-unmanned teaming efforts across platforms, and make the next generation of unmanned aerial systems more robust and maneuverable, service officials and industry leaders said during the panel.

Chris Van Buiten, vice president of innovations at Sikorsky Aircraft, noted that more autonomous capabilities could provide solutions to several of the service's challenges. He said the company is equipping a demonstrator for its proposed replacement for the UH-60 Black Hawk utility helicopter with autonomous capabilities that can enable flight in degraded visual environments or high-workload environments.

"The crew will be there for most of the missions, but [we] put a degree of autonomy to... enable manned-unmanned teaming," he said.

Maj. Gen. Bill Gayler, commanding general of the aviation branch and the Army Aviation Center of Excellence, said full autonomy is probably not in the cards for future Army rotary-wing aircraft. "Supervised autonomy "is where we think we need to pursue capabilities," he said.

It is more about aiding and...