The American company Northrop Grumman has signed a contract with the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) to develop a prototype virtual assistant for Black Hawk helicopter pilots. It will be integrated into their augmented reality helmets.
Helicopter pilots have to take into account many factors, especially when they fly close to buildings, the ground or people. Today, they are usually helped by simple warning systems. For example, sound signals about the need to increase the height. They are often ineffective for the crew, who may simply not pay attention to them.
Last year, DARPA launched the PTG (Perceptually-enabled Task Guidance) program to explore the development of artificial intelligence that would help the military perform complex physical tasks. It is assumed that such virtual assistants will know the same as users and give the latter timely audio and visual feedback.
Northrop Grumman announced on February 1 that it had signed a contract with DARPA to develop a prototype virtual assistant for Black Hawk helicopter pilots. It will be integrated into their augmented reality helmets. The virtual assistant will help train the crew in new tasks, recognize and reduce the number of errors, prevent disasters and complete tasks faster.
Earlier we wrote about the upgraded version of the Black Hawk - with a digital cockpit. It contains four contrasting liquid crystal displays, two of which display information about speed, altitude, roll and pitch, and the other two display flight tasks, sensor readings and any other information that pilots choose.
Vasilisa Chernyavtseva
