Make no mistake, the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Robotic Pilot Unmanned Conversion Program, which is called ROBOpilot for short, is not an autopilot system.
Developed by the AFRL’s Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI) in tandem with DZYNE Technologies, the ROBOpilot recently successfully completed a two-hour initial flight at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
ROBOpilot which passed the Federal Aviation Administration’s Practical Test for piloting light aircraft prior to its first flight, handles the control in the cockpit using robotic arms and reads instruments and dials with a computerized vision system.
The system is also removable so any plane which it is installed in can also revert back to a conventional cockpit so a human pilot to take control.
“It looks like an impressive achievement in terms of robotics,” Louise Dennis at the University of Liverpool told NewScientist. “Unlike an autopilot which has direct access to the controls and sensors, the robot is in the place of a human pilot and has to physically work the controls and reads the dials.”
Though it isn’t anywhere close to flying commercial planes, the the AFRL’s envisions the ROBOpilot taking control of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions as well as cargo flights.
“Imagine being able to rapidly and affordably convert a general aviation aircraft, like a Cessna or piper, into an unmanned aerial vehicle, having it fly a mission autonomously, and then returning it back to its original manned configuration,” said CRI senior scientist Dr. Alok Das. “All of this is achieved without making permanent modifications to the aircraft. ROBOpilot offers the benefits of unmanned operations without the complexity and upfront cost associated with the development of new unmanned vehicles.”
Here’s the flight:
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