Take-Away News From 2019 Autonomous VTOL Technical Meeting and eVTOL Symposium

Rather surprised that this 2019 Autonomous VTOL Technical Meeting and eVTOL Symposium held here in downtown Mesa Jan 29-31 at the Mesa Convention Center got no local reporting that you MesaZona blogger knows about.
Let's fix that right glaring information-gap right here and now.
Occasional or faithful readers of this site might remember that a post on the 3-day symposium was published ahead of time. You can that it by using the searchbox.
What's the subject matter about? Transformative Vertical Flight:

Get involved in the
Transformative Vertical Flight Concepts Initiative
Since 2014, AHS—The Vertical Flight Society has been leading a series of workshops with NASA, AIAA and SAE on Transformative Vertical Flight (TVF), and built a community of aerospace professionals that includes technical, regulatory, and business elements, and exploring the potential for new forms of air transportation systems with innovative propulsion systems. The focus has been on systems that embody combinations of on-demand, electric and hybrid-electric propulsion, and vertiport-capable configurations and designs.
The third workshop in 2016 built on the work of the previous two by soliciting expert opinions from the participants on the work and timeframes needed to transform air transportation consistent with the TVF vision. These inputs served as a starting point for the development of an advocacy roadmap needed to generate support for TVF transportation systems, technology, and markets. The TVF roadmap has congtinue to be advanced, but requires further refinement and vetting before it will be a credible advocacy tool.  To accomplish this, small focused TVF Working Group have been establish that you are invited to join. A TVF Roadmap Working Groups website has been created to enable volunteers to join and contribute in their areas of expertise. This web portal also provides a means for TVF Working Group members to access tools like virtual meeting spaces, information sharing sites, and rosters of TVF Working Group leads and members. Please visit this website to join a TVF Working Group, and tell your colleagues who have a similar interest in transforming air transportation. Working Group members are still welcome!

Transformative Vertical Flight Working Groups:

1. Personal/Private Vehicles (Short Range)
2. Commercial Intra-city (Short Range) — Report: Status of eVTOL Technology (Jan 2018)
3. Commercial Inter-city (Longer Range)
4. Public Services

Objective: Engage industry, academia and government agencies in developing a preliminary road map that will aid in the advocacy and pursuit of emerging technologies and approaches, such as electric/hybrid power and distributed propulsion, that offer the potential to fundamentally transform Vertiport capable flight configuration designs and operational concepts. As these new configuration types cannot be modeled adequately by conventional analytical tools modeling, and do not inherently fit into the existing rotorcraft certification framework (Part 27), they require new conceptual design tools and regulations able to capture the fundamental differences in approach. This initiative bring togethers interested parties to establish a foundation from which investment can fill the gaps to achieve successful new aviation products.
Approach: Combine the mutual interests of technical organizations, government laboratories (NASA, DARPA) and industry to collaboratively explore and exploit the potential for new opportunities for Vertiport capable flight. The initiative is focused on achieving participation from all stakeholders, including new and small companies aggressively focused on this topic, as well as mature aerospace companies for whom this could enhance or augment their conventional Vertiport capable flight products.

Desired Outcomes:

1. Establish and document common stakeholder needs, areas of collaboration, and advocacy to establish methods to encourage the future success of unconventional Vertiport capable flight concept solutions that are newly enabled by technologies.
2. Assemble a community to collaborate on new conceptual design and analysis tools that permit new configuration paths with far greater multi-disciplinary coupling (i.e. aero- propulsive-control) to be investigated.
3. Establish a community to develop and deploy regulatory guidelines with potential formation of an ASTM F44 Committee Subgroup for the development of consensus-based certification standards for General Aviation scale Vertiport capable flight systems that provides fixed wing approaches that don't fit within existing FAA Part 27 certification.
4. Launch an information campaign to ensure key U.S. Government agencies understand the potential benefit and industry interest in establishing new Vertiport capable flight markets.

Organizing Organizations:

• The Vertical Flight Society (VFS) 
• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• SAE International (SAE)

With support from the following committees:

• VFS Advanced Vertical Flight Technical Committee
• AIAA V/STOL Aircraft Systems Technical Committee
• AIAA Transformational Flight Program Committee
• SAE Power Systems, Propulsion, Electric Powertrain and Energy Storage Committees
• ASTM F44 Committee on General Aviation Aircraft

Source: Suas News The Business of Drones

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The 21st century has seen a continued emphasis on Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) and greater autonomy and automation for both military and civilian applications. Unmanned vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft are in varying stages of development all over the world, and continue to expand into the civil and military sectors for a variety of uses.
Autonomy is being used to unmanned versions of manned helicopters for dull, dirty and dangerous military cargo missions. In addition, the operator-interface and human factors can be one of the most significant contributions to UAS safety and successful operations. Correspondingly, technologies and regulation are being developed to safely operate UAS, and integrate them into commercial and military airspace.
Meanwhile, automation and various levels of autonomy are being used in modern civil helicopter cockpits, while the military’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) aircraft will need to be optionally-manned or optimally-manned. Autonomy is also a key enabler for new classes of vehicles for civil missions — such as personal air vehicles, urban air mobility and air taxi missions — using electric or hybrid-electric propulsion (eVTOL).
This biennial meeting is an excellent opportunity to learn about and discuss with academic, industry, and military engineers from around the world the latest advancements in manned/unmanned, electric/hybrid/turboshaft-powered, and civil/military autonomous VTOL aircraft technology.
The Technical Meeting is being held in conjunction with the 6th Annual Electric VTOL Symposium, which will be held in parallel. The conference will feature technical paper presentation related to autonomous VTOL aircraft, while the Symposium will feature invited presentations, panel sessions and discussions on electric and hybrid electric VTOL aircraft, with a focus on urban air mobility.
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Army Futures Command to Examine Ways to Acquire, Field Systems More Quickly

By Frank Wolfe | February 1, 2019

The RQ-7 Shadow drone

MESA, Arizona — As the U.S. Army Futures Command opens its doors in Austin, Texas, one of its primary tasks will be "taking a new look at how we're acquiring our systems," Bill Lewis, the director of the Army Aviation Development Directorate, told the Vertical Flight Society's 6th Annual eVTOL symposium here.
The focus will be on "embracing what's out there" and delivering products, including unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), quickly to Army units in the field, he said. . .
Indeed, the new modernization-focused Futures Command was designed to overhaul the service’s approach to acquiring emerging technologies. One big issue in the UAS realm is whether smaller companies can still respond quickly to the new Army emphasis after their acquisition by larger firms. Boeing, for example, has acquired Aurora Flight Sciences for its UAS expertise.
In a turn about from times past, the commercial world has been driving technology development in the military. The investments by commercial industry in areas like urban air mobility, for example, and the swelling commercial UAS demand mean that quick response times to Army requirements are likely, Lewis said.
For programs like the Army's Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems, the emphasis will be on fielding what is sufficient to meet the needs in the field, not the perfect solution, he said.

For the program, the Army plans to pick Group 2 or Group 3 UAS. The autonomous tactical drone should have a minimum range of 100 km, be runway independent and able to transmit intelligence data to a Boeing AH-64 Apache. The vehicle should also be survivable in contested environments. The concept of operations is for the drones to scout out the terrain before manned helicopters arrive.

The Army plans to fly prototypes for the $100 million program by 2023.
Manned-unmanned teaming, or MUM-T, has been a singular focus for the Army since it decided to retire the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior armed scout helicopter. Instead of developing and fielding a clean-sheet replacement, service leaders decided the AH-64 Apache teamed with RQ-7 Shadow drones could perform the armed scout mission.
The Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems are to replace the RQ-7.