Army General Challenges Industry To Develop Key Tech

The former commander of the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Aviation Command (USASOAC) challenged rotorcraft industry leaders this week to develop nine critical technologies required for the service to remain competitive in a rapidly changing global battlespace. Speaking at the Vertical Flight Society’s Forum 74 in Phoenix, Brigadier Gen. John Evans, Jr., noted “We find ourselves facing a new balance of power equation that no longer greatly favors the innovation, ingenuity, and productivity of the United States and her allies. The competition space is dense and challenges arise from all quarters.” The nine-point blueprint advocated by Evans included improved communications, situational awareness, aircraft fuel efficiency and survivability, adapting virtual reality to training, and smarter cockpits with autonomous capabilities.

Today's “gimbaled sensors on special operations aircraft provide limited narrow-field view situational awareness,” Evans said, adding that the crew needs total situational awareness. “We need a sensor suite that provides immediate situational awareness to each aircrew member in their individual directions of view, including peripheral, regardless of the flight environment, day or night, brownout, or whiteout.”

In addition, operators need a universal communications solution to the problem of multiple independent radio frequencies onboard aircraft. Evans said the communication radios, radar warning sensors, radio frequency countermeasures among others take up an inordinate amount of space, weight, and power or “SWaP” aboard aircraft. “To maximize aircraft payload, capacity, range, and endurance we need those RF systems to be integrated to help minimize the SWaP currently imposed by system-specific, antennas, receivers, transmitters, processors, amplifiers, and other ancillary components such as wiring and mounting brackets. The modularity of this integrated architecture should also permit aging components to be easily replaced with emergent technologies, so-called plug and play applications,” he said.  

Fxed-speed rotors on current Army aircraft drive fuel consumption rates that are disproportionate to certain flight regimes, Evan noted, adding that operators need better rotor speed efficiency. “[We] challenge the industry to develop efficient, variable speed optimal rotor systems which can rotate faster when more power is needed on takeoff and approach and spin more slowly when less power is required in forward flight, optimizing fuel consumption,” Evans said, as a means to increase special operations aircraft range, endurance, and payload capacity.

Related to this, Evans said the development of high-efficiency power sources would give Army aircraft more range, payload, and endurance and make them less dependent on in-flight or forward mission refueling. Evans cited fuel cells and hybrid systems as potential emerging commercial alternatives.

In today's environment, operators also need assured communications. “Peer and near-peer competitors are rapidly developing and fielding technologies to defeat current communications technologies,” Evans said. “We need communications systems that are clearly capable of receiving and transmitting voice and data including common operating picture (securely and discretely in congested and contested airspace across increased operational distances.”

The technology driving the Army’s current cockpits is almost 20 years old, significantly behind commercial developments, he noted. “We need a cockpit common across all platforms that is capable of exploiting current and emerging digital technologies including app architecture/interfaces. The technology could include a dockable tablet which could populate dumb cockpit displays with data and graphics generateden preflight. This portability could greatly assist with mission planning and rehearsal and ensuring a common picture across aircrews and supportive ground force elements,” he said.  

Similarly, he said while the Army’s “big box” simulators have and continue to serve their purpose, it was time to embrace virtual reality for mission simulation. “To provide the capability for aircrews to maintain and improve flight efficiency in austere environments or at their desks back home we want to leverage the ongoing explosion in virtual reality and gaming technologies,” Evans said. “Modified off-the-shelf VR Google-based technologies could significantly enhance mission readiness by allowing aircrews to rehearse missions in advance. VR technology should not be limited to flight simulation. There are clear applications for aircraft maintenance training as well.”

Evans pointed out that the battlespace has become far more lethal thanks to the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons. “We need to protect aircraft from threats regardless of guidance mechanism: radar, laser, infrared, unguided, or otherwise. This system should be modular, upgradable, and provide a certain level of protection against agile shift-on-the-fly technologies as they emerge,” he said.  

Finally, Evans said that technologies that enable “optimal aircraft manning,” including fully autonomous operations, need to be developed to reduce air crew workloads and replace air crews in appropriate situations. He emphasized that such scenarios did not include the transport of combat troops.