Airbus partnered with Protect AI to combine the latter’s Hivemind autonomous flight software program for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Aerial Logistics Connector (ALC) program.
Protect AI and Airbus U.S. House and Protection introduced on Aug. 19, 2025 the flight of the MQ-72C Lakota unmanned rotary-wing platform with the Hivemind autonomous flight software program, in help of the U.S. Marine Corps’ ALC (Aerial Logistics Connector) program. The take a look at flight, performed at Grand Prairie in Texas, noticed the MQ-72C, a by-product of Airbus Helicopters’ typical manned UH-72A Lakota utility helicopter, flown beneath the “direct management” of Hivemind, whereas collaborating with Airbus’ personal Helionix software program.
Hivemind was built-in into the plane in “beneath two months,” following Airbus partnering in April 2025 with Protect AI. Serving because the MQ-72C’s mission programs management, Hiveming carried out “auto takeoff, touchdown, and different take a look at factors as an example the software program’s capability to direct the plane with out pilot enter,” Protect AI’s assertion stated.
Protect AI and #Airbus are defining the way forward for helicopter operations – powered by Hivemind.
Hivemind, built-in with Airbus’ Helionix flight system and MQ-72C, efficiently accomplished its first autonomous helicopter take a look at flight as a part of the U.S. Marine Corps Aerial Logistics… pic.twitter.com/wMwPjzzzth
— Protect AI (@shieldaitech) August 19, 2025
The UH-72A is a utility helicopter primarily based on the Airbus H145, at the moment in service with the U.S. Military. The Aerial Logistics Connector effort is considered one of a number of throughout the Division of Protection to ship logistical help in distributed environments throughout peer or near-peer conflicts.
Protect stated the demonstration validated the stipulated flight traits of the UH-72 Lakota platform and the flexibility to “load and carry specialised cargo,” demonstrating that the plane “could be modified to fulfill Marine Corps necessities for an Aerial Logistics Connector system that helps expeditionary superior base operations (EABO).”
Protect AI’s Hivemind can be powering GA-ASI’s MQ-20 Avenger UCAV, which has demonstrated simulated Past Line-of Sight (BLOS) air-to-air engagements in progressively complicated and real-world eventualities.
Protect AI’s Hivemind on MQ-72C
In accordance with Protect and Airbus, the H145/UH-72 base platform, from which the MQ-72C is derived, provides the ALC the confirmed airframe’s straightforward logistics, easy upkeep and Open Programs Structure (OSA) to assist “excellent the mission expertise,” whereas checking undertaking timelines, price and technical threat.
The autonomous logistics functionality on the confirmed UH-72 plane, which has logged over 1.7 million flight hours and over 490 plane utilized by the U.S. Military, U.S. Navy and international allies, has purposes for civilian humanitarian help, MEDEVAC and CASEVAC roles too.
Protect AI CEO Gary Steele stated within the press launch that the newest flight “marks an necessary validation” of the corporate’s autonomous flight expertise. The corporate has introduced extra take a look at actions and demonstrations to validate the Hivemind’s capability to energy even “different helicopter variations, along with the MQ-72C.”
🇺🇸 Protect AI (@shieldaitech) and Airbus (@Airbus) introduced a teaming settlement to combine Protect AI’s Hivemind autonomy software program on the Airbus MQ-72C Logistics Connector.
“Airbus is a world-class companion with a powerful monitor report of delivering dependable programs for the… pic.twitter.com/2agR4l0LYA
— Counter Unmanned Programs (@CUAS_NEWS) Might 1, 2025
Airbus’ different partnerships and contracts for ALC
In Might 2024, the Naval Air Programs Command (NAVAIR) awarded AUSSD a Section I Different Transaction Authority (OTA) contract for its UH-72 Logistics Connector idea as a Center Tier of Acquisition (MTA) route for the ALC program. That contract concerned operational demonstrations and experiments.
After teaming up with Protect AI in April, Airbus introduced on Might 14 a collaboration with L3Harris to combine digital communications infrastructure and command-and-control into the MQ-72C “for fast integration of third-party industrial {hardware}, rising operational flexibility and adaptableness in contested environments,” as per studies.
Then, on Jun. 26, 2025, edge software program options supplier Parry Labs and Airbus introduced partnering with AUSSD to ship “autonomy, command and management, and mission capabilities utilizing trendy digital and {hardware} options” on the MQ-72C for ALC. Parry Labs will ship a industrial off-the-shelf (COTS) STRATIA Edge Software program Platform, which provides “industrial aviation requirements with trendy autonomy and mission system capabilities.”
MQ-72C and USMC
The MQ-72C is 13 ft tall, 44.4 ft lengthy, with a most takeoff weight of three,800 kg. The drone can cruise at 250 km/h, contact altitudes of as much as 20,000 ft, and distances of over 650 km. Airbus U.S. House and Protection introduced on Might 20 the completion of a second program demonstration at MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) Yuma, Arizona. Chairman and CEO of AUSSD Rob Geckle stated that the MQ-72C can “help a spread of missions and payloads that Marines might want to carry out operations in austere environments.”
The EABO idea envisages small teams of hard-to-detect Marines beneath the Marine Expeditionary Forces working from Allied-controlled options within the SCS (South China Sea), conducting standoff ship-strike fires at PLA Navy vessels with missiles just like the NMESIS. Different packages taking form to help this growth are Marine MQ-9 Reapers flying with RDESS/SOAR and STII (SkyTower II) community extension, communications relay and data-sharing pods.
In the meantime, Parry Labs’s edge computing {hardware} and confirmed floor management station, that may scale to “a number of kind components,” will even embrace integration with the Marine Corps’ MAGTAB (Marine Air Floor Pill). This technique was used within the Marine Corps’ Nov. 2024 LRPF (Lengthy-Vary Precision Hearth) take a look at off an AH-1Z Viper assault helicopter, with the household of missiles later recognized as L3Harris’ Purple Wolf and Inexperienced Wolf Launched Results.
With the MAGTAB additionally figuring within the ALC program’s MQ-72C and L3Harris integrating digital communications on that platform, this exhibits how the Corps is executing complementary launch results and strike (Purple/Inexperienced Wolf), airborne communications relay (Reaper/STII), and autonomous logistics (MQ-72C/ALC) packages to help the EABO idea.
Sikorsky’s participation in ALC
Sikorsky additionally introduced on Dec. 11, 2024, that it obtained a Section 1 Aerial Logistics Connector OTA from NAVAIR “to exhibit the maturity and functionality” of its MATRIX flight autonomy system. MATRIX is the technological basis for DARPA’s ALIAS (Aircrew Labor In-cockpit Automation System) program that Sikorsky has developed since 2020.
“Operationally related demonstration flights throughout 2025 utilizing Sikorsky’s Optionally Piloted UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter will inform the service’s Aerial Logistics Connector program how autonomous plane can resupply and maintain Marines in contested battlespace,” Sikorsky stated.
As The Aviationist reported, the software program powers a UH-60A Optionally Piloted Black Hawk which has carried out supervised autonomous and full-autonomous unmanned flights in 2021 and 2022. Then, in October 2024, DARPA contracted Sikorsky to equip the U.S. Military’s experimental fly-by-wire UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with MATRIX.
UPDATE: DC Aviation Catastrophe
Lockheed Martin, by way of its subsidiary Sikorsky, has been concerned in changing the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter into an autonomous or Optionally Piloted Automobile pic.twitter.com/SUcwmyilxM
— QuipQuest (@QuipQuest0) February 1, 2025
Additionally, on Oct. 17, 2024, the corporate demonstrated the expertise on the AUSA (Affiliation of the US Military) symposium in Washington D.C. by remotely controlling a UH-60 Black Hawk from 300 miles away. The MATRIX autonomy program additionally powers Sikorsky’s distinctive Rotor Wing Blown VTOL (Vertical Take-Off Touchdown) UAS (Uncrewed Aerial System), of which Sikorsky introduced in March the flight of a scale mannequin, validating its management legal guidelines software program.
