The F-35 Joint Program Office estimates the Auto GCAS will prevent more than 26 ground collisions during the service of the F-35 fleet. The Auto GCAS will ultimately protect more than 3,200 F-35s and their pilots worldwide. Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO) completed F-35 Auto GCAS integration and flight testing in 2018 and plan to begin fielding this proven life-saving technology in June 2019. Air National Guard F-16 Block 30 aircraft and the capability is expected to be fielded on that fleet in 2020. Auto GCAS flight testing was also recently completed on U.S. Air Force F-16 Block 40/50 aircraft worldwide. The Auto GCAS capability is currently operating on more than 600 U.S. “Many aviation professionals believe autonomy is emerging as the new frontier in aviation and Auto GCAS currently represents the leading edge of autonomy as it applies to manned platforms.” “Based on the data we’ve seen so far, the Auto GCAS is doing exactly what it was designed to do: save priceless lives and valuable military aircraft,” said Griffin. No action is required by the pilot, though the system does have a pilot override function. The Auto GCAS executes in the background and automatically provides protection whether the pilot is distracted, task-saturated, incapacitated, or unconscious. If the system predicts an imminent collision, an autonomous avoidance maneuver-a roll to wings-level and +5g pull-is commanded at the last instance to prevent ground impact. Air Force statistics, CFIT incidents account for 26 percent of aircraft losses and a staggering 75 percent of all F-16 pilot fatalities.Īccording to Ed Griffin, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works’ program manager for the Automatic Collision Avoidance Technologies (ACAT) Fighter Risk Reduction Program, the system consists of a set of complex collision avoidance and autonomous decision making algorithms that utilize precise navigation, aircraft performance and on-board digital terrain data to determine if a ground collision is imminent. The Auto GCAS, developed jointly by Lockheed Martin Skunk Works®, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is designed to reduce incidents of what is known as controlled flight into terrain, or CFIT.
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