Marines to test technology that allows fully autonomous flight for helicopters

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) will conduct a final demonstration of Aurora’s Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) on Wednesday, Dec. 13, at Marine Corps Base Quantico’s Urban Training Center, as the program moves to the Marine Corps for experimentation and potential acquisition.

AACUS enables any rotary-wing aircraft to fly completely autonomously. It allows a Marine in the field to easily request supplies even to austere or dangerous environments. Those requests can be made intuitively and quickly from a hand-held tablet, without prior training required. The Dec. 13 demonstration will feature a UH-1 “Huey” flying autonomously on multiple missions.

“AACUS gives revolutionary capability to our fleet and force,” said Dennis Baker, AACUS program officer. “It can be used as a pilot aid in degraded visual environments, or allow fully autonomous flights in contested environments, keeping our pilots out of harm’s way.”