First fully autonomous flight by unmanned helicopter

In June 2010, the Piasecki Aircraft Corporation, together with the Carnegie Mellon University, have demonstrated in-flight a navigation and sensor system at the Boeing Company’s Rotorcraft Systems site in Mesa, Arizona, USA, that enables a full-sized helicopter to fly, unmanned, at low altitude and avoid obstacles and to evaluate and select suitable landing sites in unmapped terrain. Mounted in an unmanned Little Bird helicopter testbed and using inertial sensing, an advanced laser scanner paired with mapping and avoidance software, the sensors build 3-D maps of the ground and find obstacles in the path of the helicopter. In time, the system will be used to allow unmanned helicopters to evacuate wounded soldiers from the battlefield and other dangerous situations.