The UH-60A Black Hawk military helicopter made its first flight without a pilot on board last Saturday (5), at the Fort Campbell base, in the USA. It was 30 minutes in the air, with a second takeoff on Monday (7).
The flights are part of the Aircrew Task Cockpit Automation System (Alias) program developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
According to the agency’s website, Alias ​​was created to develop removable kits to promote high levels of automation in aircraft that today require pilots, allowing safe operations with reduced crew. The objective is to support the execution of “an entire mission, from takeoff to landing, even in the face of contingency events such as aircraft systems failures.”
The technology used, Sikorsky Matrix, can change the way “aviators carry out their missions by providing assistance in flights with limited visibility or without communication”, says the statement released by Darpa, which allows the system to perform operations without human command.
According to Eduardo Mariutti, professor at Unicamp’s Institute of Economics and at the San Tiago Dantas graduate program in international relations, there are two main implications for the use of this type of technology. The first is the soldier economy, an issue that has been around since the Vietnam War, when the American population was dissatisfied with combat deaths.
“From a military point of view, there is a greater propensity for risky actions, because you will only lose material. As expensive as it is, it does not involve loss of life of highly trained people, in complex combat scenarios”, explains the specialist in complex systems and chaos theory.
The second point is an ethical question that is already discussed in the medium about “to what extent can a machine make decisions that will put the lives of civilians at risk”, he adds. This type of dilemma is a frequent topic in debates about applications of artificial intelligence, even more so in a military context. Darpa does not mention the concept in the statement, but the pioneering technology employed in the helicopter provides different levels of autonomy and automation for specific missions.
The text states that Alias ​​has leveraged the advances in automation systems of the last 50 years, highlighting that even the most automated aircraft today require pilots to manage complex interfaces and deal with unexpected situations.
“With Alias, the Army will have much more operational flexibility,” said Stuart Yang, Program Manager at Darpa’s Office of Tactical Technology, in a statement. “This includes the ability to operate an aircraft at any time of day or night, with or without pilots, and in a variety of difficult conditions, such as challenging, blocked and degraded visual environments.”
The agency says the US Army has been exploring the potential use of technologies such as Alias. Next month, the program plans to conduct the first flight with the system on a UH-60M at Fort Eustis, Virginia.
Associated with American actions around the world, the Black Hawk occupies a place in the pop imagination: the overthrow of one of them in Somalia became a Ridley Scott film (“Black Hawk Down” or “Black Hawk Down” in the Brazilian version). It is used by air forces in 31 countries, including Brazil.
