Image: Sikorsky’s Nomad 100 built for the DARPA EVADE program undergoes initial flight testing. Proprietary visuals concealed. Photo courtesy Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company.
Sikorsky has completed initial ground and flight testing of its Nomad 100 uncrewed aerial system. The Lockheed Martin company ran the tests under DARPA’s Early VTOL Aircraft Demonstration programme, as per a recent press statement.
A Step Toward Crewed-Uncrewed Teaming
The milestone advances Lockheed Martin’s push into next-generation autonomy and crewed-uncrewed teaming. These capabilities aim to give operators speed, precision and reliability at the tactical edge.
Rich Benton, vice president and general manager at Sikorsky, commented: “Nomad 100’s ongoing flight testing reflects our commitment to advancing autonomous technology while delivering safe and reliable mission capabilities that equip customers to fill critical operational gaps.” He added that Nomad will operate as part of a crewed-uncrewed team, supporting missions from forward operating bases to ship decks and unimproved landing zones.
Sikorsky will next put the Nomad 100 through an intensive flight test campaign at a government facility, replicating a range of multirole missions.
Design and Capability
The Nomad 100 uses Sikorsky’s rotor blown wing architecture. It combines a helicopter’s vertical lift and hover with a fixed-wing aircraft’s speed, range and endurance. Its twin prop-rotor system enables vertical takeoff and landing, hover, wing-borne cruise and runway-independent operations in all weather, over land and sea.
Part of a Wider Autonomy Push
DARPA selected Sikorsky’s MATRIX autonomous technology to power all five platforms in the EVADE programme. MATRIX also enables Sikorsky’s S-70UAS U-Hawk and hybrid electric demonstrator platforms, and has logged over 1,000 flight hours and 500 successful tests to date.
Learn more on Lockheed Martin’s website
