The Black Hawk helicopter just took its first step towards unmanned capabilities

An effort to make Black Hawk helicopters function as optionally unmanned aircraft passed a major threshold last week, Defense One reports citing an Army testing official.

The test featured an unmanned Black Hawk picking up and delivering an autonomous amphibious all-terrain vehicle (AATV), which then carried out its own mission. The two unmanned vehicles managed to coordinate their missions and successfully carried them out.

Paul Rogers, the Army's director of Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) told Defense One that during the exercise, the helicopter "came in, picked up [the AATV], flew five to seven kilometers in an air route, delivered it to a ground location and released it."

After the delivery, the AATV autonomously navigated a series of chemical and biological hazards while beaming back satellite data.

The success of the joint operation between the autonomous Black Hawk and AATV highlights a new level of robot teamwork.

The test also highlights the greatest success yet in attempts to make the Black Hawk an optionally manned aircraft in the future. Sikorsky, the company that builds the Black Hawk, has been working towards an unmanned version of the helicopter since an announcement last year.

The Army's existing fleet of approximately 2,500 Black Hawks could be retrofitted in order to make the aircraft optionally manned. Such a move would supposedly give the Army a greater degree of flexibility in their operations.

"The autonomous Black Hawk helicopter provides the commander with the flexibility to determine crewed or un-crewed operations, increasing sorties while maintaining crew rest requirements," Mark Miller, the Vice President of Research & Engineering at Sikorsky, told Defense Tech about the project. "This allows the crew to focus on the more 'sensitive' operations and leaves the critical resupply missions for autonomous operations without increasing fleet size or mix."