Joby and Reliable Robotics demonstrated military use cases for their remotely-piloted Cessna Grand Caravans earlier this month as part of a U.S. Air Force agile combat employment exercise.
Led by the U.S. Air Force’s Afwerx innovation unit, the Autonomy Prime program conducted the Agile Flag 24-3 exercise with eVTOL aircraft developer Joby and autonomous flight technology innovator Reliable Robotics at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California from August 5 to August 9.
During the exercise, both companies flew their independently-developed autonomous demonstrator airplanes—both of which happen to be Cessna 208B Caravans—to transport cargo between nine military bases in California and Nevada.
With safety pilots on board and remote pilots monitoring from the ground, the aircraft taxied, took off, and landed autonomously at every destination without the need for any supporting ground infrastructure. Reliable Robotics deployed a mobile ground control station at the Mojave Air and Space Port. Meanwhile, Joby said its team remotely monitored their flights using a laptop and a satcom terminal small enough to fit inside a backpack.
Joby acquired autonomous flight pioneer Xwing about two months ago. Xwing has flown its autonomous Caravan more than 300 times since 2020. In April 2023, Xwing initiated the FAA certification process for the autonomous Caravan, making it the first standard-category large uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) to receive official project designation from the agency. Last year the FAA accepted Reliable Robotics’s certification plans for the “continuous autopilot engagement system,” an early version of the autonomous system that it is offering for single-pilot operations.
Both Reliable Robotics and Xwing have spent the past six or seven years developing competing autonomous flight control systems to enable reduced-crew and pilotless operations in commercial cargo airplanes. Lately, their autonomous flight technologies have caught the attention of the U.S. Department of Defense, which is interested in leveraging emerging tech from the advanced air mobility industry to enable dispersed military operations—a concept known as agile combat employment, or ACE.
“The Air Force has a unique opportunity to redefine efficiency through autonomous operations, which can enable persistent maneuver in contested environments and simultaneous cargo delivery instead of our current sequential system,” said Col. Max Bremer, chief of special programs at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Mobility Command. “Autonomy in small platforms reduces risk and opens up the ability to land in more places including damaged runways or unimproved surfaces.”
Reliable Robotics and Xwing both obtained military airworthiness approval for their respective experimental Caravans earlier this year, and both companies participated in the Air Force’s Agile Flag 24-1 exercise, which took place between January 6 and February 1 at McClellan Airfield in Sacramento, California. During that exercise, Xwing flew the Air Force’s first autonomous logistics mission.
“We were pleased to continue demonstrating the capabilities of our autonomy technology during Agile Flag 24-3, where we completed dozens of fully autonomous aerial missions and showcased an ability to perform rapid resupply,” said Maxime Gariel, who leads Joby’s autonomy team. “We look forward to continuing to work with the U.S. Air Force as we further develop the suite of technologies that could enable greater automation or full autonomy, first on the Caravan and then on numerous other aircraft types.”
In addition to cargo logistics, the U.S. Air Force has been studying other potential applications for autonomous flight technologies, including automated aerial refueling systems. It contracted Reliable Robotics for the feasibility study, which was published last year. It subsequently chose Merlin, another autonomous flight start-up, to automate KC-135 Stratotanker operations together with aerial refueling specialist Sierra Nevada Corp. Flight tests for the autonomous KC-135 program began earlier this month.