QinetiQ has demonstrated an airborne team of manned aircraft and autonomous drone for the first time in the UK.
The demonstration over the army ranges on Salisbury Plain featured a manned helicopter and a semi-autonomous drone working together in a designated area. An operator on board the helicopter was able to switch between monitoring the images sent back by the cameras on the drone and allowing it to operate independently, searching for and identifying potential targets itself, only alerting the operator when a decision was required.
这项工作由陆军总部研究和实验资助，使用国防和安全加速器（DASA）竞争框架，并将由国防科学技术实验室（DSTL）于9月作为陆军战争实验的一部分（AWE19）交付给英国军队（AWE19））。There have been several demonstrations of airborne manned/unmanned teams in other countries but the UK’s first successful demonstration is notable as the entire process was controlled through a point and click interface on a portable tablet on board a standard H125 helicopter connected to an IP mesh net radio. This indicates that very little modification is required to a host aircraft to make an airborne manned/unmanned team work effectively.
The system uses Assisted Target Recognition (ATR) to provide the helicopter crew with extended range sensing. Controlled autonomy in the drone reduced the cognitive burden for the operators whilst ensuring compliance with operational and tactical policies. The system provides STANAG 4586 Levels of Interoperability (LOI) equivalent to 2 for sensor data reception, 3 for sensor payload tasking and 4 for platform tasking. This enabled control of the drone to be moved from one person to another securely and effectively throughout the trial. Not only does this ensure an unmanned drone can always be controlled by the person best placed to make decisions, it also paves the way for a more collaborative approach to using unmanned systems.
The team was created using a
