March 29, 2024

Drone Software Ready for Heavy Seas

X-47B UCAS-D on USS Truman

Posted for The Patuxent Partnership
Pax Leader II
By Jay Friess

The head of the Navy team responsible for programming unmanned aircraft to land on aircraft carriers told a gathering of local defense industry leaders last week that his software is ready to put an aircraft on a deck pitching in 10 to 12-foot seas.

Capt. Jaime Engdahl UCAS presentation

Capt. Jaime Engdahl, head of the Unmanned Combat Air System Program office, briefs The Patuxent Partnership.

At a briefing hosted by The Patuxent Partnership at the Southern Maryland Higher Education Center, Capt. Jaime Engdahl, head of the Navy’s Unmanned Combat Air Systems program office (PMA-268), told an audience that his program’s software had reached Technology Readiness Level 6 (out of nine stages) and was ready to land a unmanned aircraft on a deck in Sea State 5.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, Sea State 5 is categorized as “rough” with 2.5 to 4-meter waves. Capt. Engdahl said his team’s software can handle a deck with a 10-foot pitch and compensate for the random yawing and fishtailing caused by high winds.

But they’re not going to try this feature out during physical trials later this year.

Capt. Engdahl said, “We’re going to do very benign landings when we go out to the carrier.”

PMA-268 can count some very important milestones this year, according to Capt. Engdahl, including the first catapult launch of an unmanned aircraft at Naval Air Station Patuxent River Nov. 29 and the first carrier deck handling test of an unmanned aircraft in December.

X-47B UCAS-D on USS Truman

The X-47B UCAS demonstrator was taken aboard the USS Truman in December for deck handling tests.

“Every single event that we do from August to the conclusion of the program is an historic moment,” Capt. Engdahl said.

Capt. Engdahl said there is no substitute for testing unmanned systems and their software in a real environment, but he noted that the program’s taxiing tests on the USS Kennedy did not reveal any “big things.” However, the team did underestimate the world’s reaction to pictures of the bat-wing unmanned aircraft sitting on a carrier deck, and it also didn’t expect the enthusiasm of the USS Kennedy’s crew.

“It was amazing how proud they were and the ownership they took of that vehicle,” Capt. Engdahl said.

For all its historic moments, Capt. Engdahl said the team, as well as the rest of the American military, have yet to finalize a key piece of integrating unmanned aircraft into traditional military operations – aerial refueling.

“We are still chasing the challenge of who is going to do unmanned aerial refueling,” Capt. Engdahl said, noting that refueling requires a location sensitivity an order of magnitude higher than that used for landing. “There is no solution for Navy refueling.”

paxpartnership.org

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