PETER LA FRANCHI / WASHINGTON DC
Lockheed Martin design would enable "pack" operation using distributed intelligence between multiple UAVs
A Lockheed Martin stealthy hybrid fixed/rotary-wing aircraft is the second concept to be selected by the US Army/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)for the Unmanned Combat Armed Rotorcraft (UCAR) programme.
DARPA shortlisted Northrop Grumman in July (Flight International, 22-28 July). Lockheed Martin receives $9.4 million and Northrop Grumman $8.7 million. Boeing and Sikorsky-Raytheon had also been heading UCAR teams.
Lockheed Martin's jet-powered aircraft has wings to provide lift in high-speed forward flight and appears to use vectored thrust for torque control.
The aircraft would also support a form of distributed intelligence and decision-making capability between multiple air vehicles to enable "pack" operations.
The airframe design has parallels with the company's F-117 stealth fighter. Lockheed Martin UCAR programme director Dan Rice says: "Obviously there is shape there you will also note that there is no tail rotor, and you will also notice that it is not a tiltrotor." The wings are "more for lift than control", he adds.
The UCAR would carry modular sensors and weapons packages. Rice says the UCAR would have internal bays for all weapons.
The pack concept permits a variety of approaches to operations, he says. "What we would envisage is the flexibility of the team to vary in size depending on what the mission objectives are. So at some points in time, [operations] may be as small as a single UCAR air vehicle with or without a manned platform. At other times, it may be considerably larger than that, with multiple heterogenous payloads depending on what the top-level objectives of the mission are."
Rice says co-operative capability between air vehicles would mean "the team plans as a team. It isn't multiple air vehicles working in their own environment that don't have any cognisance of the other members of the team. The team has an ability to communicate with each other and make decisions as a group in a distributed fashion."
Lockheed Martin's team includes Bell, Draper Laboratories, and Whitney, Bradley and Brown. Bell is responsible for the air vehicle development and propulsion system. Low observable elements of the design are being performed by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works.
Source: Flight International
