Recent News and Events

August 22 , 2005: Two helicopters demonstrate beyond line-of-sight mission:
As the final demonstration of an ONR-STTR program conducted jointly with MIT, mixed integer-linear programming was used to enable a practical mission involving two helicopters. The mission involved an 'away' helicopter navigating around a set of builds to a target point which was beyond line-of-site to the ground station. Under these conditions, loss of communication is likely, so a second 'relay' helicopter was commanded to follow a path that maintained line-of-site to both the ground station and the 'away' helicopter. Paths which respected all the constraints (buildings, trees, etc. and maintenance of a communication path) were computed in real time by a mixed integer-linear program and uplinked to the helicopters. Flights were completely autonomous from take-off to landing.

The figure above shows actual flight data of the two helicopters as they perform the mission around the office buildings where NTC resides. The red circles are the 'away' helicopter, which is on its way to the red star at left. The green circles are the 'relay' helicopter; a line connecting the two verifies that a line-of-site link is maintained through the relay. Click here for a (~56 Mb) video of the mission.

July 21, 2005: XS-series prototypes perform 7 fully autonomous flights in two days:
Two of NTC's prototype XS-series helicopters performed seven flights over the course of two days for dozens of Tollway officials and onlookers at the Illinois Tollway CAP facility in Downer's Grove, IL. All flights were flown from take-off to landing by the on-board computer, with simple high-level direction from a ground operator. The venue was a heliport sited less than 1/4 mile from a major Illinois Tollway interchange and tollbooth, both of which were observed in detail from our on-board video camera. Flights were between 10 and 20 minutes, and included waypoint-guidance flight and joystick-guidance flights. Winds during some of the flights were gusty, estimated at 15-20 knots; nevertheless the XS prototype exhibited very stable flight and hover performance. The Illinois Tollway is considering using NTC helicopters as part of their Traffic Incident Management System (TIMS), for construction monitoring, and for various security functions. Click to enlarge images from the flights below, or click here for a (~6 Mb) video of one of the autolands, taken during gusty conditions.

April 21, 2005: NTC coverage of MIT event makes local news:
NTC launched an AHMMH-1 from the roof of a dormitory on MIT campus to cover an event and add a little excitement to the activities. Take-off and landing were from a confined space (approx. 20 ft. by 20ft.) under gusty conditions, making hovering difficult. Our new automation system allowed a non-pilot to control the helicopter from take-off to landing with a joystick, while monitoring downlinked video imagery and vehicle status information. The ground operator was able to place the helicopter in a precise location for viewing the roof-top activities, acquire footage of the crowd on the ground, and remain within a prescribed zone of safety. Local news crews were on hand, and after the event NTC transferred footage that ended up on the news that evening. Click here to see a (sorry, 18 Mb!) summary video.

November 20, 2004: NTC and MIT perform two-helicopter coordinated flight: NTC and MIT, as part of a ONR Phase II STTR to study algorithms for multi-vehicle path-planning and coordination, performed a test flight with two helicopters simultaneously flying, and performing an optimal 'deceptive area search' operation. The operation was modeled after a mission developed in cooperation with the U.S. Army, to perform a search using a randomized pattern that obfuscates the enemy. The planned paths maximized deception while guaranteeing vehicle separation and range limitations. Another algorithm that was flight tested performs randomized reconnaissance of a planned route through an urban combat environment; in this case it is important that any threat observers cannot determine the intended route by observing the reconnaissance UAVs. These demonstration paves the way for Army testing using the Raven UAV, and potentially combined fixed- and rotary-wing experiments. Check our videos page for video summaries of the flight.

November 6, 2004: Seventh AHMMH-1 Goes into Service: With the completion and delivery of a second AHMMH-1 autonomous helicopter system to Lockheed Martin Systems Integration in Owego, NY (LMSI-Owego), and the completion of MIT's Fourth AHMMH-1, Seven autonomous helicopter systems are currently in service. The seventh unit is currently in the possession of the Air Force Research Lab in Dayton, Ohio. See our gallery for more pictures.

August 17, 2004: Simultaneous autonomous flight of the NTC AHMMH-1 and the ACR 'Silver Fox': LMSI-Owego performed a preliminary flight test of a multi-vehicle mission, under command and control of Lockheed's Airborne Manned/ Unmanned System Technology Demonstrator (AMUST-D). Two Silver Foxes and one AHMMH-1 flew under the command of a central controller, performing a variety of reconnaissance tasks and downlinking video.

AMUST-D, a system for UAV teaming and control from manned platforms with a heterogeneous team of UAVs, will be deployed in a set of airborne workstations at a Battlefield Commander level. LMSI research is already working a subset of the tasks of design, analysis, prototyping, testing and demonstration for deployment and control of air launched Tactical UAVs from a MH-60S Multi-Mission Helicopter. Based on the testbed requirements, LMSI selected the Silver Fox/ Cloud Cap system and the NTC AHMMH-1 (VTUAV surrogate) as the demonstration vehicles for the TUAV concept. Lockheed believes that a rotorcraft UAV provides the capability to support investigation of Urban Homeland Defense missions and supports heterogeneous development.

July 27, 2004: Long duration camera flights: NTC flight tested it's first gas-powered version of our AHMMH-1 autonomous helicopter system. This system, one of two being delivered to LMSI-Owego, is outfitted with a pivoting camera and software for command and control from Lockheed's AMUST ground station control system. The system performed a full 30 minute flight operation, including downlinked video that can be panned, tilted, and moved from side using a combination of gimbaled motion and helicopter motion (pirouette, direct side velocity control, etc.). This combination of helicopter and camera control from the ground is suitable for such tasks as bridge inspection, search and rescue, and force protection.

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