Autonomy Proving Ground Advances With First Alternative Navigation Flight

A bright orange dart drifted in the air at approximately 1,000 feet. The cloudless bright blue skies practically swallowed up the 7-foot, 50-pound unmanned aerial system as it flew its pattern. As it passed overhead, the sound from it at ground level was like a revved up weed eater engine.

Those quiet Osprey MK III flights at Duke Field, north of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, last week were part of vendor alternate navigation software testing by the Autonomy, Data, and AI Experimentation Proving Ground, in collaboration with AFWERX, the Department of the Air Force's innovation arm. It also marked the first time this aircraft flew with a third-party developer's software package operating on the aircraft.

"The autonomy proving ground is giving small businesses the opportunity to compete in acquisition without requiring them to fund any of their own testing," said Anthony Hix, 413th Flight Test Squadron and lead for this test.

The goal for alternative navigation testing is to examine the feasibility of providing an aircraft or weapon with its own internal GPS estimation tools instead of using external sources. Those external sources are prone to jamming and spoofing that deny the aircraft the ability to maneuver in a combat environment.

For the testing, Osprey MK III takes off via a controller. Once airborne, the aircraft's autonomy takes over and then relies on the alternative navigation software for location and flight guidance. UAS flight controllers monitor the test with multiple cameras and data-gathering equipment to ensure the systems communicate properly and safety is maintained.

According to Hix, the long-term goal of alternative navigation is for the Air Force to gain a new capability to navigate in contested environments with a low size, weight, power and cost solution.

This work aligns with AFWERX's autonomy proving ground fly-offs, which provide a low-cost environment for companies to demonstrate new navigation technologies on small, unmanned aircraft. AFWERX partners with small businesses, startups and industry to accelerate emerging technologies, providing official Air Force test reports and transition pathways that speed adoption by both the Defense Department and commercial markets.

"This type of fly-off provides small businesses the opportunity to vet their alternative navigation systems in a black-box test environment," said Air Force Lt. Col. Jonathan Gilbert, AFWERX Prime division chief. "It enables an experimental approach that is replicable across systems, truly allowing us to measure each system's performance."