Advanced MUM-T Capabilities for US Army FVL
BAE Systems has been awarded multiple contracts by the US Army for the Advanced Teaming Demonstration (A-Team) programme – designed to advance manned and unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capabilities expected to form critical components of the Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) programme, the company announced on 3 November.
In order to combat the increasingly complex, contested, and communications-denied battlespace presented by near-peer adversaries, the Army developed the A-Team programme to create an automated system to offload pilots’ cognitive burden, while enabling them to command swarms of unmanned aircraft. BAE Systems is the only company to be awarded contracts for three of the programme’s four focus areas. The company has been selected to deliver a highly automated system to provide situational awareness, information processing, resource management, and decision-making that is beyond human capabilities. These advantages become exceedingly important as the Army moves toward mission teams of unmanned aircraft that will be controlled by pilots in real time.
“Our mature autonomy technology, which is the basis of our offering for the A-Team program, will greatly increase the warfighter’s ability to have a complete view of the battlespace and streamline decision making,” explained Chris Eisenbies, Product Line Director for the Autonomy, Control, and Estimation group at BAE Systems’ FAST Labs. “Future conflicts will include manned and unmanned teaming and increased automation in highly contested environments, helping to enable mission success.”
The contracts total $9 million and include awards for the Human Machine Interface, Platform Resource Capability Management, and Situational Awareness Management elements of the programme.
The programme, for which work will be conducted at the company’s Burlington, MA and San Diego, CA facilities, will leverage the Future Open Rotorcraft Cockpit Environment Lab, to conduct simulation tests and demonstrations with products from different contractors to assess potential transition to the FVL programme.
