A team of US Air Force officers has designed and built an autonomous drone, or unmanned aerial system (UAS),in just 22.5 hours as a demonstration of the potential for developing rapid warfare capability.
Working at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, the group of officers, known as Black Phoenix, had set themselves the goal of going from design to flight within 24 hours. The team began the project as part of their Blue Horizons fellowship. Blue Horizons is an Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology mission that is part think tank, part incubator that promotes unconventional thinking and processes to Air Force problems with strategic impact.
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The Black Phoenix crew is one of five teams wrapping up those projects after year-long fellowships. Their three-person team took on the task of evaluating how to rapidly adapt small UASs, their technology and payloads based on the need and environment.
‘Small UASs are becoming a new warfighting capability,’ said Col. Dustin Thomas, a Blue Horizons fellow and Black Phoenix team member. ‘However, the Air Force can’t rapidly change these aircraft based on the threat environment or quickly use new technologies to meet the needs of a specific mission. Our project aims to find ways to change that.’
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To take their project from the theoretical to practical, the team turned to Titan Dynamics, a small aerospace company focused on rapid and cost-effective UAS designs and development.
‘We went in search of a young, smart, new start-up company, who was willing to take on a big risk,’ said Black Phoenix member Lt. Col. Jordan Atkins. ‘We couldn’t be more impressed with their ability to yield a miracle like this in only two months.’
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The team used Titan’s automated design software to create an aerodynamic UAS body based on weight, power, dimensions and payload in less than ten minutes. That design code was then fed into 3D printers to create the lightweight UAS body parts. Once all of the pieces had been printed, the team could build a newly created UAS designed specifically for its mission parameters.
Black Phoenix first tested the method in Southwest Asia in March with Task Force-99 with some success. They then brought those test data and lessons learned to Eglin for their final in-the-field tests.
‘Eglin is trying to create a space to test small UASs and new technological capabilities very quickly,’ Thomas said. ‘Historically, the Air Force is relatively slow in adapting and testing these technologies, and Eglin is trying to change that paradigm. We wanted to partner with them and be a part of that paradigm shift.’
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During Black Phoenix’s week at Eglin AFB, the team tested six autonomous aircraft using the quick create, build, fly method for various missions, including a 3.6-kilogram personnel recovery UAS that could be used to deliver supplies to a downed pilot behind enemy lines.
Some of the aircraft flew successfully, but at other times, particularly when the team pushed the boundaries, aircraft crashed. The successes and failures were all part of Black Phoenix’s goal to gather research on the feasibility of the concept of rapidly created UASs.
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What they did discover was regardless of flight or crash, the internal autonomy hardware and payload were virtually unharmed. To build back and try again meant only reprinting the outer UAS structure at a cost of around US$20–50.
‘We’ve taken big risks this week in flying so many new aircraft for the first time, but the risk is also low because these entire aircraft are built from commercial off-the-shelf items, so the financial investment is small,’ said Black Phoenix team member Lt. Col. Peter Dyrud.
The Black Phoenix team will now present their study evaluation to the secretary of the Air Force and Air Force chief of staff.