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30 June 22. AERTEC Completes European Defence Agency UAS TARSIS Test Campaign.
The ATLAS Experimental Flight Center in Jaén, Spain has hosted the final phase of SAFETERM (Safe Autonomous Flight Termination System), a project sponsored by the European Defence Agency (EDA) and developed by technology companies GMV and AERTEC.
Unmanned aerial systems are in full expansion and development phase, with safety in all flight phases and its integration in the airspace being a priority issue. The objective of the SAFETERM project is to improve current medium-altitude, long-duration (MALE) RPAS flight termination systems and procedures by applying state-of-the-art artificial intelligence/machine learning technologies to increase the level of safety in specific emergency situations, in case of failure of both the autonomy and the ability to control the remote pilot.
The system aims to provide tools to enable aircraft to autonomously determine Alternative Flight Termination Areas (AFTA) where the risk to third parties can be minimized. In the event of a loss of communication with the aircraft and the subsequent identification of an emergency that prevents reaching planned Flight Termination Areas, the aircraft quickly identifies a safe area to land, avoiding buildings, roads or inhabited areas.
Final flight campaign of the UAS TARSIS 75
The validation phase of the project has concluded with a flight campaign in a live operational environment at the ATLAS Experimental Flight Center, using AERTEC’s TARSIS 75 unmanned aerial system. The aircraft had an on-board prototype of the SAFETERM System for evaluation of its viability. To this end, several flights were made during three full days, in which the system behaved as expected during the course of the project.
During the tests, loss of communication and the subsequent emergency situations were simulated. Next, using the images obtained from the TARSIS sensor, the SAFETERM system autonomously identified possible safe landing areas, ultimately enabling TARSIS to make the guided flight to the safest landing area.
“The fact that AERTEC is the firm in charge of Design Engineering and Integration of the TARSIS 75 has played a key role in the timely execution of this project, which required the development of new modules and integrating a new system (SAFETERM), first in a simulation environment and finally in our unmanned system”,
adds Juanjo Calvente, director of RPAS at AERTEC.
These tests have attracted the interest of several dozen professionals and heads of agencies and organizations from all over Europe, who have attended the call of the European Defense Agency (EDA) to present the results of SAFETERM.
About AERTEC
AERTEC is an international company specializing in aerospace technology. The company will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2022 and develops its activity in the aerospace, defense, and airport industries.
AERTEC is a preferred supplier (Tier 1) of engineering services for AIRBUS in all its divisions: Commercial, Helicopters, Defense and Space, at the different AIRBUS sites globally. Its participation in the main global aeronautical programs stands out, such as the A400M, A330MRTT, A350XWB, A320, Beluga and the C295, among others.
The company designs embedded systems for aircraft, unmanned aerial platforms, and guidance solutions, both in the civil and military fields. It has light tactical UAS of its own design and technology, such as the TARSIS 75 and TARSIS 25, for observation and surveillance applications and also for support to military operations. Likewise, it designs, manufactures, and deploys systems for the digitization of work environments and the automation of functional tests, under the smart factory global concept.
As regards the airport sector, the company is positioned as the engineering firm with the strongest aeronautical focus, partaking in investment, planning and design studies, consultancy services for airport operations and terminal area and airfield process improvement. It has references in more than 160 airports distributed in more than 40 countries in five continents.
AERTEC’s staff consists of a team of more than 600 professionals, and has companies registered in Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Colombia, Peru, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates.
(Source: UAS VISION)
29 June 22. Djibouti parades Bayraktar UCAVs. Djibouti has revealed itself to be an operator of the Baykar Bayraktar TB2, parading the Turkish-built unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) at its independence day celebrations on 27 June.
Two Bayraktar UCAVs were showcased in a military parade to mark the 45th anniversary of independence for the east African country, with each being transported on the back of a flatbed truck.
With both UCAVs featuring the national flag of Djibouti and the markings of the Djibouti Air Force (Force Aerienne du Djibouti: FAD), one aircraft carried two underwing Roketsan MAM-L smart micro munitions, while the second was unarmed.
Although the procurement/sale and delivery of the Bayraktar TB2 have not been announced by either the Djibouti or Turkish governments, and they do not appear in any satellite imagery of the Djibouti–Ambouli International Airport (the sole operating base for the FAD), online flight tracking services recorded an Ilyushin Il-76 heavy-lift cargo aircraft operating between the two countries in early June. (Source: Janes)
23 June 22. DoD CDAO Partners with USAF to Conduct Developmental Test Flight of AI and autonomy-enabled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. “Autonomy is in high demand right now. It helps alleviate problems with communications and jamming, and relieves burdens from routine tasks that Pilots, Sensor Operators, and Intelligence Analysts face during aircraft operations…”
The Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), now integrated into the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO), recently teamed up with an Air Force developmental test squadron to successfully complete a full-spectrum developmental test of the “Smart Sensor” unmanned aerial system (UAS) and artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled autonomy capability. The event spanned four weeks through April and May at a test range in the western U.S. The event marked a major milestone for the Smart Sensor autonomous system, as it was the first time that the Smart Sensor system was integrated, flown, and independently tested on a government-owned aircraft operated by USAF test pilots.
Artificial Intelligence in drone technology
“It’s one thing to throw a capability together on a surrogate aircraft and demonstrate it at an exercise. It
is quite a different story to subject your maturing technology to the professional developmental test
community. It is not yet an Operational Test environment, but the advances in autonomy and sensor integration were clearly demonstrated,” said Lieutenant General Michael Groen, the former JAIC
Director. “There were many layers of review and approval needed, including airworthiness,
cybersecurity, safety, and test evaluations. Much of this was new terrain, proving out the concepts for platform autonomy, and building the test structures for how it is evaluated. The partnership with the
USAF was critical. This series of test flights saw the team successfully complete most of their technical objectives. We’re looking forward to continued advances as this system and the broader capability it
represents speeds toward program transition to the Services.”
The CDAO has a National Defense Strategy mandate to accelerate the adoption of data, analytics, and AI across the Joint Force. Smart Sensor is a CDAO project delivering an on-platform, AI-enabled autonomy package that allows a UAS to conduct automated surveillance and reconnaissance functions in contested environments. The initial capability development leveraged the MQ-9 because it had the size, weight, and power to carry the Smart Sensor hardware and software suites. Beyond the initial integration, the program represents an advance in ‘platform agile’ capabilities that could be integrated into a variety of programs. Smart Sensor serves as a pathfinder program for autonomy and automation for the DoD at scale. The CDAO works in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL) as the developer of the core capability behind the system, a software package known as the Smart Sensor “Brain.” The Brain is not only capable of autonomously controlling multiple sensors, but also perceiving, making inferences, and reporting observations without the requirement for ground Processing, Exploitation and Dissemination (PED). (Source: Satnews)
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