US DARPA awards contract to design vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aircraft

News, US July 17, 2023 , by IRIA No Comments

U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency’s (DARPA) Tactical Technology Office has awarded Northrop Grumman a contract to design a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) uncrewed aircraft system.

According to the U.S. defense manufacturer Northrop Grumman, “The AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY (ANCILLARY) demonstrator will be designed as a cost-efficient, multiple-mission capable vehicle built on an agile platform that is runway independent.”

The aircraft system would be capable of operating from a moving U.S. Navy ship at sea and carrying a large “60-pound sensor payload” with the endurance of 20 hours on station as well as “mission radius range of 100 nautical miles, without using significant additional infrastructure aside from what is on board the air vehicle,” the Northrop Grumman statement read.

The ANCILLARY aircraft system will be capable of conducting “intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting missions, and supporting expeditionary missions for special operations forces and logistical missions with significant affordability impacts for ship-to-shore transition of parts and supplies,” the statement added.

Vice president of research and advanced design at Northrop Grumman, Tim Frei said, “In collaboration with DARPA, Northrop Grumman will work to significantly enhance how future autonomous vertical lift aircraft will operate at sea and ashore. The ANCILLARY program enables us to combine our digital engineering expertise with extensive knowledge and insights from past successes in developing and operating uncrewed vertical lift aircraft for the U.S. Navy.”

*^{U.S. DARPA’s AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY (ANCILLARY) Vertical TakeOff and Landing X-Plane. (Image Credit: Northrop Grumman)}*

The DARPA’s ANCILLARY program aims to develop and flight demonstrate an X-plane with the critical technologies required for a leap-ahead in long endurance VTOL unmanned air system performance.

The ANCILLARY aircraft system would be able to “launch and recover from ship flight decks and small austere land locations in adverse weather without additional infrastructure equipment, thus enabling expeditionary deployments,” the U.S. Department of Defense agency statement read.

According to the DARPA statement, “The VTOL systems, the small UAS size would allow many aircraft to be stored and operated from one ship creating a tactical beyond-line-of-site (BLOS) multi-intelligence sensor network capability.”