DARPA awards Aurora ALIAS programme contract
According to a press release on 5 January 2015 by Aurora Flight Sciences, the company has won a $6 million contract for the first phase of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System (ALIAS) programme.
The programme is aimed at developing and inserting new automation into existing aircraft to reduce on-board crew requirements. It envisions a portable and extensible hardware and software kit that would enable the introduction of new levels of automation across a wide variety of military and civilian aircraft.
Aurora will work with the Duke Engineering Research Institute and National Robotics Engineering Center to develop an automated assistant that can operate an aircraft from take-off to landing. It will automatically execute the necessary flight and mission activities, checklists and procedures at the correct phases of flight as well as detect and respond to contingencies. An intuitive interface would inform the human pilot continuously of the automated actions being executed and give the option to take back control.
Javier de Luis, vice president of research programmes, Aurora, said: 'Successful introduction of such a system would help improve pilot performance and reduce individual workload, while also providing significant cost savings in the form of simplified training and lower crew costs.'
He added: 'Because of its portability, its defined interfaces, and its open architecture system, I expect ALIAS to have broad applications across a wide range of both military and civilian transport systems.'
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