Naomi Cooper
NASA-designed collision avoidance software has been tested onboard two research helicopters of Lockheed Martin‘s Sikorsky division as part of efforts to evaluate the autonomous technology to enable advanced air mobility.
Five software systems were loaded into the Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft, a modified S-76B converted into a flying lab, and the larger Optionally Piloted Vehicle Black Hawk, the agency said Thursday.
Each helicopter flew with a safety pilot to supervise the flight tests during which Sikorsky’s flight autonomy system ran alongside the NASA software on tablets the agency designed, allowing the aircraft to fly autonomously along multiple planned routes.
The safety pilots also used the tablet to monitor flight path options the software provided for course corrections.
“These flight tests using Sikorsky’s SARA and OPV helicopters show how we can stack technologies together to increase automation over time in a maintainable and scalable way,” said Adam Yingling, NASA project lead.
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