QinetiQ has successfully trialled the UK’s first crewed-uncrewed teaming demonstration between a manned aircraft and an autonomous jet drone, the UK-based technology house announced on 25 April 2024.
The trial – which took place in collaboration with the UK Ministry of Defence’s (MoD’s) Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force’s Air and Space Warfare Centre (ASWC) – saw a QinetiQ jet aircraft take off from the MoD site at Boscombe Down in Wiltshire while a modified Banshee Jet 80 unmanned aerial target was launched from the MoD’s range in the Hebrides off the northwest coast of Scotland.
Flying from Boscombe to the Hebrides, the aircraft soon gained control of the Banshee, with the drone receiving its orders from the aircraft before automatically conducting the mission assignment, flying at 350 kts (648 km/h).
The mission involved not only the live Banshee drone but also a number of digital Banshees within a live-virtual swarm, successfully acting in a co-ordinated manner.
The Banshee was equipped with QinetiQ’s Airborne Command and Control for Swarm Interoperable Missions (ACCSIOM) technology, which allows the drone to communicate with the manned aircraft using the same messaging format as the standard NATO Link 16 datalink. Instrumental to the deployment of autonomous air platforms, the technology provides an airborne gateway that can receive and translate both long- and short-range communications between drones while in-built safety systems can override the autonomy to ensure the drone stays at all times within a safe operating area.
“The success of this trial demonstrates that the combination of crewed and uncrewed teaming between current frontline combat aircraft and next-generation drones can be potentially achieved successfully with the existing combat air fleet, while offering the potential to increase combat capability in an affordable manner,” QinetiQ stated in a press release.
“This transformative trial is a great example of collaboration and technology leadership in aviation defence capability, as we seek to meet the ever-changing requirements of those on the front line,” Alan Hart, QinetiQ’s managing director for science and technology, was quoted as saying by QinetiQ. “It represents a significant advance in developing technologies that will allow uncrewed systems to operate seamlessly with current aircraft, providing the basis for air operations for the next twenty years.”
UK Minister for Defence Procurement James Cartlidge added, “Our armed forces strive to be at the cutting edge of technology. The ability to team crewed and uncrewed systems is an important step forward in our ability to seize the opportunities inherent across drones. Using British engineering expertise, this successful trial is another excellent example of what happens when the MoD and industry experiment and test hand-in-hand – a core approach in our UK Defence Drone Strategy and Integrated Procurement Model.”
Peter Stockel, Dstl’s chief for robotic and autonomous systems, stated, “This UK first paves the way in de-risking the barriers to adopt autonomous systems through advancing autonomy capabilities that are easier to integrate and also address regulatory requirements. The project has been about ‘teaming’ throughout, not only for the crewed-uncrewed technologies and their integration, but also as an exemplar of MoD, Dstl, QinetiQ and other industry partners working collaboratively to accelerate advanced autonomy research and development for operational advantage at pace through more open and agile approaches and real-world experimentation.”
The flight trial, part of the UK’s Accelerating Air Autonomy Capability Experimentation (A3CE) research and development programme, is the culmination of a year’s planning and development activity by QinetiQ and Dstl that has seen a series of synthetic and flight de-risking trials, assessment and testing.
