MADRID, 27 November 2023 – Airbus quietly introduced its Vertex demonstrator today, the set-up day for EUROPEAN ROTORS. The demonstrator was available in the foyer outside the EASA Safety Symposium meeting room for delegates to examine and see in action.
The Vertex project was announced in April of 2021 and aims to reduce pilot workload and improve safety. Airbus added a package of what was called, at the time, ‘autonomous technology bricks’ to add to the OEM’s H130 Flightlab test bed. These include vision-based sensors and algorithms for situational awareness and obstacle detection, fly-by-wire for enhanced auto-pilot, and an advanced human-machine interface.
The distillation is that the human-machine interface (HMI) is much simplified, with a single stick replacing the three conventional controls (cyclic, pedals and collective). Much of the ‘flying’ is done via the tablet and touchscreen PFD interface. In the actual aircraft, this set-up takes up far less space compared with conventional controls, resulting in a commensurate improvement in visibility. But for me, that, albeit welcome, bonus is not only benefit. The real meat of the matter is the enhanced reality displays, which combine the best of LIDAR, satellite, IR and real-world inputs to create a situational picture that can only be described as ‘next league’. The fact that this is rather more than a bench simulation of what could be, but, in fact, flown technology, lends it even more credence. Of course, there is much to do before the system finds its way into existing aircraft or the company’s CityAirbus Next Gen eVTOL. But there can be no doubt that when the technology matures to a point where it enters service – not only will it make the dream of reliable all-weather operation for light and medium helicopters a reality, but more importantly, there will be a dramatic improvement in helicopter accident rates helping make another dream, a safety performance comparable with fixed-wing IFR, attainable.
I spent 30 minutes learning about the system and its capabilities, and I’m sold. It will be very interesting to watch the next steps.
