Look Ma, No Hands... And No Pilot!

Proxy Aviation Systems, developer of fully autonomous, optionally piloted unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), announced Tuesday it has successfully completed testing of the automatic take-off and landing (ATOL) capabilities of SkyWatcher at a USAF-sponsored demonstration at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.

SkyWatcher (pictured below) is a forward canard design, looking much like the popular kitplane from Velocity on which it is based.

The US Air Force sponsored and cooperated in the demonstration, which took place at Yuma Proving Ground, Yuma, AZ on December 13, 2006.

Utilizing Proxy Aviation’s SkyForce distributed management system and a flight control system produced by Geneva Aerospace, SkyWatcher successfully performed several automatic take-offs and landings, fully unmanned and autonomous, without user intervention from the ground control station.

Proxy says the system performed flawlessly and met several specific test objectives including, runway centerline tracking, traffic pattern ground tracking, precise touch down point and proper braking action.

"The Battlelab is particularly excited by the absence of any ground-based equipment being needed to accomplish the take-offs and landings. This demonstrates the ability to operate from austere locations, a highly desirable feature for the Expeditionary Air Force," said Greg Pierce, technical director the USAF's UAV Battlelab.

SkyWatcher is the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) component of SkyForce, Proxy Aviation's comprehensive, network-centric unmanned aircraft system designed to perform group tactical goals and meet a wide range of mission requirements.

SkyForce consists of Proxy's mission-oriented software system, a primary mission-management ground control station and mobile ground control user terminals. Together, according to the company, these elements are designed to control up to 12 fully autonomous air vehicles engaging in concurrent, cooperative flight. Proxy says SkyForce has the ability to make fully independent decisions during flight without any human intervention.

This successful ATOL demonstration sets the stage for a planned USAF-sponsored initial operational capabilities live fly demonstration at Eglin Air Force Base in early February 2007.

"Proxy is excited to complete this major milestone on the road to fully autonomous cooperative flight," said Don Ryan, CEO, Proxy Aviation. "We believe that unmanned cooperative flight is the future of military aviation and will vastly expand the boundaries of what it is possible to accomplish with advanced unmanned aircraft systems."

Proxy Aviation’s SkyForce distributed management system also includes SkyRaider (above), a UAV designed for low- and medium-altitude flight. Proxy says SkyRaider can meet a wide range of mission requirements such as heavy-payload ISR, battle damage assessment (BDA), urban warfare, communications data relay and missions requiring the carriage and release of external stores.

FMI: www.proxyaviation.com