By Brett Daniel Shehadey
Special Contributor for In Homeland Security
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is working with Skunk Works to design VTOL drones that can be used for surveillance, transport and medevac purposes—even remotely controlled via tablets or smartphone devices—to support forward deployed ground troops.
The project is called ARES (Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System). It is expected to be finished with final ground testing phases and a maiden flight by mid-2015.
DARPA program manager Ashish Bagai said:
“Many missions require dedicated VTOL assets, but most ground units don’t have their own helicopters. ARES would make organic and versatile VTOL capability available to many more individual units. Our goal is to provide flexible, terrain-independent transportation that avoids ground-based threats, in turn supporting expedited, cost-effective operations and improving the likelihood of mission success.”
The key themes are: availability, flexibility and speed. It is argued that the ARES will be more prevalent in the future than helicopters; able to carry loads up to 3,000 lbs. and have a maximum velocity up to that of present-day small airplanes. They will need half the landing space that helicopters of similar size currently do. This will also cut costs, because helicopters that play these VTOL battle requirements today are expensive to purchase and maintain.
The artistic renderings of AREA look like a primitive small-scale transport from a video game like HALO.
DARPA press release:
“ARES would center on a VTOL flight module designed to operate as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) capable of transporting a variety of payloads. The flight module would have its own power system, fuel, digital flight controls and remote command-and-control interfaces. Twin tilting ducted fans would provide efficient hovering and landing capabilities in a compact configuration, with rapid conversion to high-speed cruise flight…Initially, the system would be unmanned, with a future path towards semi-autonomous flight systems and user interfaces for optionally manned/controlled flight.”
Reference: http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Releases/2014/02/11.aspx
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