Marine Corps seeking robotic cargo aircraft to resupply troops.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: UNMANNED AVIATION

* Roadside bombs have claimed the lives of hundreds of marines who were protecting convoys en route to replenish forward operating bases with water, food and supplies. Officials want to take trucks and troops off the roads in Afghanistan by relying instead on unmanned helicopters to deliver the cargo.

Following successful demonstrations of the concept with commercial technologies, the Marine Corps is pushing ahead with plans to rush a system to the front lines.

Naval Air Systems Command in May released a notice of its intent to conduct a competition for the procurement of a cargo unmanned aircraft system capable of carrying sling loads weighing at least 750 pounds.

The command has received responses from industry and it is anticipating the release of a request for proposals this month.

"We are looking to procure one system, which includes two air vehicles, an associated ground station and support equipment," wrote Eric Pratson, cargo UAS integrated product team lead, in response to questions from National Defense.

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The contract will be awarded about six months following the release of the RFP and deployment of the system is expected within nine months of the award, he said.

"The effort is a military utility assessment of a viable system," he added.

A company of marines at a forward operating base typically needs 10,000 to 20,000 pounds of cargo delivered each day.

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory earlier this year conducted resupply experiments with two autonomous helicopter systems at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The team tested Kaman Aerospace Corp.'s K-MAX and Boeing's A160 Hummingbird in missions that included delivering 2,500 pounds of cargo over a distance of 150 nautical miles within a six-hour period.

Kaman partnered with Lockheed Martin Corp. to turn its piloted helicopter, employed by the logging industry since the 1960s, into an unmanned system. Boeing's aircraft was designed as an autonomous intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform, but it needed to be adapted for hauling cargo.

In the demonstrations at Dugway, one of the simulated forward operating bases was located at 4,300 feet to emulate the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan.

The two systems each had 72-hour preparation periods followed by three days of flight demonstrations. The sorties included one night flight.

"We gave them their missions every day" in a format that aircraft operators use in actual flight operations, said...