DARPA's Damage Tolerance

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Challenge: The Joint Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems (J-UCAS) program sponsored by DARPA was looking for a new approach to autonomously mitigate the effects of physical damage that could potentially occur in an air combat environment. They were looking for technology that would provide a new option for surviving the effects of an adversary's attack, allowing the air vehicle to sustain flight and potentially continue its mission. Athena Technologies, now part of Rockwell Collins, was awarded the contract.

Damage tolerance capability is crucial for unmanned combat aircraft systems (UCAS) operating in extremely hazardous, high-threat environments. The technology provides for virtually instantaneous, autonomous assessment of damage incurred followed by an immediate response that alters the flight control system to compensate for the effects of that damage.

Solution: Our technology is based on a unique, software-based approach to vehicle control that has been developed and evolved over the past decade. Its evolutionary string of control algorithms have been built on experience achieved using a variety of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Efforts focused on airborne demonstrations of autonomous damage detection and recovery and the subsequent real time reconfiguration of the control laws needed to maintain vehicle stability and control. These adjustments enable air vehicles to complete their missions after incurring battle damage and allow them to safely return home. Specifically, our solutions offered:

• Robust, general-solution techniques for implementing damage-tolerance and system-survivability features
• Innovative strategies for avionics redundancy management that would be applicable to most air vehicles
• Significant reductions in the cost to achieve first flight on new, dynamically challenging vehicles.

Results: We conducted a successful flight demonstration of damage tolerant flight control and autonomous landing capabilities on an unmanned subscale F/A-18 on April 18, 2007 at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.

In June of 2008, Rockwell Collins, through newly-acquired Athena Technologies, completed another successful flight test of a significantly damaged unmanned F/A-18 subscale model air vehicle.

During the first flight test in June, nearly half of the airplane's right wing was ejected to simulate battle damage and in-flight failure. During the second flight, almost 60 percent of the airplane's right wing was ejected. Upon ejecting the wing section during both flights, Rockwell Collins' Automatic Supervisory Adaptive Control (ASAC) technology reacted to the airplane's new vehicle configuration, automatically regained baseline performance, continued to fly the plane, and then autonomously landed it using internal Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) reference only.