US Army to fit autonomous Black Hawk with degraded visual environment sensor

The US Army plans to fit its optionally autonomous Sikorsky UH-60MX Black Hawk with the Degraded Visual Environment Pilotage System, a sensor package designed to help crews fly in obscured conditions such as brownouts and darkness.

Sierra Nevada, which makes the system, said on 13 October that the army will install it on the new aircraft in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, running from October to December 2026. Sikorsky delivered the helicopter in March with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Lidar and passive infrared imagery are combined to build a continuously updated three-dimensional model of the terrain below the aircraft. According to Sierra Nevada, the multi-sensor package lets pilots see through rain, snow, fog, dust, sand and smoke that would otherwise cause a loss of situational awareness or disorientation. The equipment already flies with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

On the UH-60MX, the system would feed terrain data to Sikorsky's Matrix autonomy software. The manufacturer describes Matrix as giving the aircraft the sensor information it needs to interpret its surroundings and carry out flight manoeuvres safely. Sierra Nevada characterised the installation as turning a pilot-aid system into a machine-perception system.

The MX Black Hawk is based on Sikorsky's UH-60A Optionally Piloted Vehicle demonstrator, which has flown without pilots on board since 2022. That rotorcraft uses a retrofitted fly-by-wire flight control system and the Matrix software to perform flight operations without direct input from a pilot, remote or otherwise.

The work falls under the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funding contract that supported the first experimental UH-60MX.