By Robbin Laird
FLRAA is coming at the dawn of the age of autonomous systems. It is being crafted as a manned program to operate in the con-ops of formations that will operate in the world of combined arms operations of manned systems working with autonomous ones.
The Army approach encompasses the following considerations: Focus on the Platform; focus on the payloads; focus on the con-ops of the formation; focus on the training with the resultant capability to work in flexible combat clusters.
Based on the discussion of the panel at AUSA which focused on the future of vertical lift, one can identify how the Army is planning to deal with each of these aspects of the way ahead for the FLRAA.
Focus on the Platform
The Army is leveraging decades of experience of the USMC working with tiltrotor aircraft. This gives them a significant edge up with its new tiltrotor aircraft compared to the situation facing the Marines who blazed the path pioneering use of this new technology when they first took it to Iraq in 2007. The Army is leveraging the USMC experience in terms of impact on con-ops, training, maintenance, and the entire experience of the tiltrotor enterprise into which they now are writing a new chapter.
As Colonel Jeffrey Poquette, project manager for the future long-range assault aircraft, noted: “I know there is a plan to familiarize Army rotorcraft pilots. We have the V-22. The V-22 is a tiltrotor, so I’ve already started meeting a couple of Army aviators who have experience in the V-22. I just hired an experimental test pilot who is qualified in the V-22, so we’re starting to build up the familiarity with a technology that the Army has not really used before.”
There are a number of design aspects to the new tiltrotor which will enhance maintainability and performance of the aircraft, but it should be remembered that the V-22 is a bigger aircraft and one which has advantages due to its size as well.
But one of the key design features of FLRAA being crafted to meet the challenge of working with autonomous systems and the correlated systems onboard the aircraft to manage them is the use of a digital backbone designed to facilitate rapid upgrades.
This encompasses the hardware – the computerization – as well as the MOSA software. As Poquette noted: “MOSA, like I said, is such a big deal; I can’t not mention it several times today. The digital backbone that enables MOSA didn’t exist on Valor, right? So that’s a significant part.”
He added: “And if I could add, as an integrator of aviation systems, I work with counterparts in other PEOs whose job is to provide me the systems. We can’t discount the importance of MOSA to integrating ASC quickly.
“Keeping pace with emerging threats is vital. ASC is one of the harder things to integrate with an aircraft. MOSA and the ability to leverage the digital backbone, leverage the standards that are open and available to the industry. Those standards, which are government-owned, are heavily informed by the architecture working group.
“I envision a future where as soon as a threat emerges, the necessary survivability equipment is ready for integration. The challenge lies not just in developing this technology but in ensuring it works effectively on the aircraft, which is where MOSA will take those timelines down a tremendous amount which is an important part of enhancing aircraft survivability.”
The aircraft is being built with a digital engineering approach which allows as well significant ways to enhance design to production to upgrade capabilities as well. Given the focus on working the manned-autonomous systems effort in a combined arms approach the core point is really that the aircraft has a digital backbone focused on rapid upgrades through the use of the Modular Open Systems Approach or MOSA software as a gateway to rapid upgrades in payloads and systems.
Focus on the Payloads
Acquiring and integrating into the force of autonomous systems is very different from acquiring manned platforms. They are payloads carried by an autonomous vehicle (ground, air or maritime) and are focused primarily on a singular mission purpose or payload.
As Marcus Hellyer, the noted Australian strategist, put it in a recent interview I did with him in Canberra, Australia: “You can’t look at autonomous systems as simply an unmanned version of a traditional platform. Everyone says that but I don’t think they really think through what that means. And what it does mean is you don’t want it to do everything that a traditional platform does with the autonomous system, because if you try and design it to do so, it’s going to be just as complex as a manned system. This in turn means that is going to take just as long to design and it’s going to cost just as much as a manned platform. There will be no savings in terms of time, money and people.
“In other words, the key point to underscore is this: Start simple, design autonomous systems to do one thing, and once they can do one thing effectively, and you work from there as the operators use them and input their demands into this process.”
In the discussions by the panel of autonomous systems, it is apparent that they get Hellyer’s points. For example, as Dr. Kirsch, Director of Combat Capabilities, underscored: “Our sister centers focus on some of the payloads, the different sensors, electronic warfare effects, and lethal effects. Our primary focus has been on behaviors and specifically how to get these launched effects to collaborate to accomplish our mission.
“We’ve done a lot of work showing how we can use launched effects with similar sensors for search areas or reconnaissance. In the next month, we’re planning a capstone demonstration using a team-of-teams approach, where we have one operator managing multiple unmanned systems or launched effects with different capabilities. Some might have electro-optical/infrared sensors, some might be decoys, and some might have lethal effects. The operator will assign missions and decide when one sensor sees something and another needs to verify it. Ultimately, they’ll pass that information back to a single operator, who will decide whether to prosecute the target or not.
“This involves a lot of collaborative behavior between the different platforms, allowing the operator to focus on their essential tasks while the autonomy of the launched effects manages the complexities of dividing the problem.”
Focus on the Con-ops of the Formation
Several speakers on the panel emphasized that the new manned platform would be working with “launched effects” which refers to either autonomous systems or loitering munitions to create the effects which an Army formation would be oriented to create.
As Major General Michael McCurry, Chief of Staff U.S. ArmyFutures Command. added: “From a tactical and operational perspective, certain mission sets align more naturally with autonomy. If we’re putting 100 Rangers on the objective, there’s likely someone flying that platform. Conversely, for repetitive tasks like logistics, where operations need to occur over extended periods, those are areas where we could see more rapid applications of autonomy.
“There are still considerations as we define behaviors. There’s a natural alignment of certain mission sets. The other thing I would say about autonomy is that our focus is on protecting the humans. I talked about not sacrificing humans for first contact. Imagine a young Warrant Officer in the front seat of an AH-64 Apache with all that data coming at them. We can use different levels of autonomy to offload and untask saturate some of that workload, better protecting them and prosecute the mission more efficiently at the same time.”
Or as Colonel Jeffrey Poquette commented: “And so, I would say from an S&T perspective, when you take into account the things that General McCurry was talking about—particularly in terms of the congested and contested airspace— as we look at launch effects, the sensors for launch effects, and autonomy, we’re trying to use those capabilities to provide better situational awareness. This way, we can perform sense-and-avoid maneuvers so that we don’t run into each other in that contested airspace.
“As we push our launched effects further out in front and conduct that scout role that, in previous years, we handled with manned assets, we need to understand what behaviors are required and what sensors are necessary to provide the same kind of awareness of what’s out in front of us. So that, as we move manned formations forward, we know what we’re about to face.”
Army Brigadier General Cain Baker, Director of Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, highlighted the importance of the con-ops for formations as the shaping function for the kind of combined arms operations that FLRAA will do with autonomous systems for the future force:
“Generally, we’re taking steps with this on the launched effects side for the Army. Last year, when we updated the Concept Document (CD), we went with both aerial launch capability and ground launch capability. So we’re working through that now to determine the right mix of capabilities—whether launched at the formation level or employed from the air. A lot of that involves ongoing studies. We have an active study looking at that mix, and we’re also incorporating simulations. We’ve always had high-fidelity simulations, but now we’re actually putting it into our formation exercises. Additionally, we’re also testing in the field. We just finished Edge, and I can discuss that if you like.
“Bringing formations out to Edge and then subsequently to Project Convergence helps us inform the DOTMLPF (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, and Facilities) requirements. In the next year, we’re also working closely with David’s team and PM UAS on user demonstrations with launched effects inside formations, which will inform what type of formations we need and what employment capabilities they require.
This speaks to a broader portion that General McCurry mentioned earlier about the system-of-systems approach. Launched effects interact with our ground forces, our aerial assets, and our Human-Machine Interface (HMI) on the ground, so there’s a lot of learning going on here, and we’re excited to get this out to the field.”
Focus on the Training
The speakers discussed the importance of training. From the standpoint of operational safety, training air crews is crucial. The experience with the Osprey underscores the importance of pilot training as 90% of crashes have been caused by pilot error.
Major General Michael McCurry emphasized:
“No loss in training is acceptable. Every loss of a soldier is tragic, and when that happens, we do a deep investigation to determine root causes and implement corrective actions.
“In 2023, during my time overseeing aviation, we conducted an aviation stand-down focused on a bottom-up feedback exercise where we had units provide feedback all the way up. We collected it and backbriefed the Vice Chief and the Chief at the time, then went out to brief all the division and corps commanders in one session on what we found.
“That’s where we discovered that, as we transitioned from the way we had been flying in Iraq and Afghanistan—higher above the terrain, with not a lot of threat to consider—to a more high-risk environment, we were overdriving our capabilities a little bit. Aviators were pushing themselves into situations they weren’t yet prepared for…
“So, in aviation, we had to back up in 2023 and focus on some fundamentals, telling people it’s okay to say, “I need more training before I take that next step.” We took action to reorient the Department of Evaluation and Standardization at Fort Novosel to assist the CABs with training shortfalls. We simplified some maneuvers, particularly in the survivability realm, and focused on retaining those mid-grade warrant officers over time…”
But training also refers to learning how to operate in formations or what I call combat clusters in which combined arms operations are conducted with manned and autonomous systems.
Major General Michael McCurry put it this way:
“When we’re working on unmanned systems and launched effects, there are really three interrelated time periods. You’ve heard a lot about transforming contact, and General Schlosser mentioned earlier that soldiers figure out how to use things differently than engineers and designers intended. Transforming contact means we’re giving some of these systems to engage soldiers so they can begin experimenting with them, informing organizational concepts, future doctrine, and training in the near term.
“These periods are interrelated: transforming contact informs the traditional deliberate transformation period and the program objective memorandum (POM). All of that is also being informed by the concept work that the Capability Command is doing. These three interrelated time periods—transforming contact, deliberate transformation, and concept-informed transformation—help us tie the picture together in a space that’s moving quickly.”
In short, one cannot understand the process of developing the Army’s new tiltrotor aircraft into the force without understanding the impact of the age of autonomous systems into which it will enter the force, one which will do combined arms operations with synergy between manned and autonomous systems.
Note: Below is a Deep Dive podcast which discussed the panel and its main conclusions.
This podcast was created using Google’s NotebookLM app.