Northrop Grumman has been appointed by DARPA for its VTOL Aircraft Development with DARPA’s ANCILLARY Phase 1b air vehicle design and system technology maturation award.
Northrop Grumman Corporation has been chosen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to progress to the next phase of its autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft development under the ANCILLARY program. DARPA’s ANCILLARY Phase 1b air vehicle design and system technology maturation award entails a 10-month period focused on enhancing modeling accuracy, conducting essential subsystem testing, and mitigating key technical challenges. Leveraging its extensive experience in autonomous VTOL systems and long-endurance aircraft, Northrop Grumman aims to advance its ANCILLARY air vehicle design for DARPA. Collaborating with Leigh Aerosystems and Near Earth Autonomy, the company aims to achieve project objectives and deliver a cost-effective solution to the warfighter community, moving closer to the development of a flight demonstrator.
Christopher Harris, Program Manager, ANCILLARY, Northrop Grumman,“Northrop Grumman’s expertise in VTOL autonomous systems is built on thousands of flight hours of ship-based operational experience with the U.S. Navy. We are pairing forward-looking and industry-leading technical capabilities to provide next-generation intelligence gathering solutions via the ANCILLARY autonomous system.”
DARPA’s ANCILLARY program aims to develop and showcase an X-plane featuring essential technologies for a significant advancement in long-endurance, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). This UAS would possess the capability to launch and recover from ship flight decks and compact austere land locations in challenging weather conditions, without the need for additional infrastructure equipment. This capability would facilitate expeditionary deployments and locally controlled responsive intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting (ISR/T) missions with distinct payload capabilities. Unlike larger VTOL systems, the compact size of the UAS would enable multiple aircraft to be stored and operated from a single ship, thereby establishing a tactical beyond-line-of-sight, multi-intelligence sensor network capability.
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