Improved flight control

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Boeing and partners from academia have demonstrated flight control technologies that could improve the mission effectiveness of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles.

and a team of flight control scientists from academia have demonstrated flight control technologies that potentially could dramatically improve the mission effectiveness of advanced unmanned aerial vehicles.

The effort is part of the Software Enabled Control program (SEC) sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with technical direction from the US Air Force Research Laboratory.

The demonstration flight, on May 26 at Victorville, California, involved the DARPA Renegade rotorcraft UAV, modified to include SEC hardware and software. During the flight, the SEC software assumed control of the Renegade to execute autonomous manoeuvring algorithms developed by university teams.

“The SEC program provides the control technology necessary to fully exploit the unique features and capabilities of unmanned platforms, and helps them realise their potential for tactical operations,” said Dr. John Bay, DARPA Software-Enabled Control program manager.

Developed by Boeing Phantom Works and teams from the University of California – Berkeley, Georgia Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the SEC software is based on a Boeing Open Control Platform (OCP) architecture.

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