The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing a helicopter jeep that has the ability to travel both on land and in the air. The vehicle will be able to carry up to four people and 1,000 pounds of cargo a distance of about 250 knots. The purpose of the Transformer Program, as DARPA calls it, is to create a flexible vehicle that can fly itself or at least with minimal human input. The driver of the vehicle could operate the vehicle without any pilot training. The vehicle will have to be aware of its surroundings and automatically react to it. To help them in developing the robot pilot, DARPA is partnering with Carnegie-Mellon University. Last summer, CMU flew an autonomously guided full size helicopter.
This technology could be really helpful to our military. The jeep aspect of the vehicle could be used for patrols or other missions. The helicopter aspect of the vehicle would allow soldiers to fly over a potential land mine or other dangerous area. It would also be able to get injured soldiers out of the battle and to where they can get medical attention quickly. Since there would not be a need for a pilot to constantly man the controls of the helicopter, the vehicle could have more firepower.The vehicle can also make vertical takoofs and landings, so it would be difficult to hit and less predictable.
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