Rockwell Collins, through newly-acquired Athena Technologies, has completed a successful flight test of a significantly damaged unmanned F/A-18 subscale model air vehicle. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored the flight demonstrations held this spring at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland.
During the first flight test, nearly half of the airplane's right wing was ejected to simulate battle damage and in-flight failure. During the second flight, almost 60 percent of the airplane's right wing was ejected.
Upon ejecting the wing section during both flights, Rockwell Collins' Automatic Supervisory Adaptive Control (ASAC) technology reacted to the airplane's new vehicle configuration, automatically regained baseline performance, continued to fly the plane, and then autonomously landed it using internal Inertial Navigation System/Global Positioning System (INS/GPS) reference only.
The flight test campaign followed a similar successful DARPA sponsored demonstration in April 2007, during which an aileron was ejected in-flight from the unmanned subscale F/A-18.
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