According to a press release on 5 January 2015 by Aurora Flight Sciences, the company has won a $6 million contract for the first phase of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) programme.
The programme is aimed at developing and inserting new automation into existing aircraft to reduce on-board crew requirements. It envisions a portable and extensible hardware and software kit that would enable the introduction of new levels of automation across a wide variety of military and civilian aircraft.
Aurora will work with the Duke Engineering Research Institute and National Robotics Engineering Center to develop an automated assistant that can operate an aircraft from take-off to landing. It will automatically execute the necessary flight and mission activities, checklists and procedures at the correct phases of flight as well as detect and respond to contingencies. An intuitive interface would inform the human pilot continuously of the automated actions being executed and give the option to take back control.
Javier de Luis, vice president of research programmes, Aurora, said: 'Successful introduction of such a system would help improve pilot performance and reduce individual workload, while also providing significant cost savings in the form of simplified training and lower crew costs.'
He added: 'Because of its portability, its defined interfaces, and its open architecture system, I expect ALIAS to have broad applications across a wide range of both military and civilian transport systems.'
The airborne three-domain, the two ground-based and the ¼ ATR OpenVPX-based cross-domain systems were engineered to provide real-time security across multi-domain operations.
DARPA’s Mission-Integrated Network Control (MINC) programme was set up to develop an autonomous tactical network and enable critical data flow in contested environments.
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Defence-secure mixed reality headsets can save hours, or even weeks, of travel time to fix defunct equipment or get subject experts effectively “on-site” where they are needed.
The Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Improvised Explosive Device Electronic Warfare (JCREW) counter-improvised explosive device (C-IED) and Drone Restricted Access Using Known Electromagnetic Warfare (DRAKE) counter-UAS (CUAS) systems are mounted and dismounted RF jammers.
Adarga’s Vantage information analysis tool is in service with the UK MoD and individual UK forces. It builds on the company’s Knowledge Platform which processes, organises and analyses open source material, as well as information held by the user’s military, security and intelligence services.
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