Autonomous flight

Lockheed Martin's famous-yet-secret Skunk Works is conducting live flight tests of its Smart Adaptive Flight Control Environment (SAFE) autonomous AI system on the X-62A. The system can be reconfigured in real time while the X-plane is still in the air.

Scientists have engineered a micro-aerial vehicle that has the potential to fly indefinitely in sunlight, using an electrostatic motor to power its ultra-lightweight unit. Until now, these tiny drones have been limited to around 30 minutes of airtime.

A supersonic drone that will be propelled by a revolutionary new engine has taken to the skies for the first time. When Venus Aerospace's aircraft does go supersonic on a later date, it will be powered by a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE).

How hard could it be to fly a helicopter if the controls consisted of just one stick and two touchscreens? That's exactly what the case is with the recently announced Skyryse One, which could be yours for just shy of $2 million.

In order for cargo drones to be widely adopted, it helps if they're compatible with the shipping infrastructure. The creators of the Orca drone have kept that in mind, as their aircraft will take payloads stacked on standard-size shipping pallets.

Aerospace company Silent Arrow has been awarded a contract by the Air Force Research Laboratory's innovation arm AFWERX to develop a heavy payload, long-range motorized version of its GD-2000 glider drone capable of flying 300 nm (350 mi, 560 km).

A Cessna 208B Caravan kitted out with an autonomous flight system from Reliable Robotics recently took to the skies north of Hollister in California, without any humans onboard – though the aircraft was supervised remotely by a pilot on the ground.

In the spirit of waste not, want not, Anduril Industries has rolled out its Roadrunner-Munition (Roadrunner-M) jet-propelled VTOL autonomous interceptor drone that can destroy aerial threats or return to base intact to fight another day.

Rotor Technologies is now in production on a full-size unmanned helicopter for civilian use. Based on the Robinson R44 Raven II, the R550X flies for more than three hours, at speeds up to 150 mph (241 km/h), carrying up to 1,200 lb (550 kg) of cargo.

Having shown off simplified copter controls, Airbus Helicopters' FlightLab has completed a fully automated flight testing a new simplified tablet-based human machine interface (HMI) designed to reduce pilot workloads and increase safety.

Airbus innovation division UpNext is testing its next-gen autonomous systems for air-to-air in-flight refueling, which could be a revolutionary leap forward for a variety of military and civil aircraft, safely extending range and endurance.

Ordinarily, drones flying around airports are thought of as a hazard. The AtlasNEST system, however, utilizes drones to fly over landing areas where problems may be occurring, in order to give control tower workers a bird's eye view.