Defence

Using a Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk III unmanned air vehicle, the US company has demonstrated an Intelligent Control and Autonomous Re-planning of Unmanned System (Icarus) device that allows one operator to manage several unmanned vehicles, both airborne and ground-based.

In its sixth year of development led by Lockheed's Skunk Works unit and with support from its Advanced Technology Labs, Icarus is designed to increase unmanned vehicle autonomy. During the demonstration Icarus planned and updated vehicle operations to meet task requests, enabling one operator to act as mission manager.

"We have shown that Icarus decreases operator workload while enabling control of a team of unmanned assets performing complex missions in dynamically changing environments," says Lockheed programme manager John Clark.

Control of the vehicles was passed between a tactical operations centre, a mobile command and control unit and soldiers on the ground during a week-long hybrid operations exercise conducted at the NAS Oceana Dam Neck Annex in Dam Neck, Virginia in mid-August. The work was in turn part of the US Navy Network Warfare Command's Trident Warrior technology insertion demonstration.