Adaptive Vehicle Management Systems Program Phase II Overview

This paper presents the results of the three and a half year Adaptive Vehicle Management System (AVMS) Phase II program, which developed a suite of technologies designed to exploit the large amount of information available across the subsystems of a modern rotorcraft and flight tested them on three platforms, an H-6 flying technology demonstrator, an H-47 Chinook and an AH-64 Apache. Technologies developed included those in the areas of tactile-cueing based carefree maneuvering, tactile cueing for maneuver and mission aiding, active external load stabilization, rotor state sensing, and alternative redundancy methods. The AVMS program expands on most other flight controls research by demonstrating a VMS that can simultaneously optimize multiple metrics including not only handling qualities but also aircraft performance, mission productivity, safety, and operating and sustainment (O&S) costs. The flight test results show benefits to mission productivity as demonstrated by an average of 19% improvement in the time to complete a range of mission task elements, along with a 34% improvement in workload, significant improvement in performance, and almost a 1 Cooper-Harper Point Rating (CHPR) improvement in handling qualities. In addition, the AVMS technologies were shown to prevent inadvertent exceedances of operating and safety limits, thereby saving a projected average of $50,000 per aircraft per year for a typical advanced capability military rotorcraft. The results substantiate our hypothesis that these technologies will make a significant positive impact on the effective and efficient operation of modern rotorcraft.