Airbus UpNext, a wholly-owned subsidiary, has demonstrated its Auto‘Mate autonomous inflight refueling technology. During a flight from Getafe, Spain, on March 21, Airbus’s A310 MRTT tanker testbed autonomously guided a succession of four Airbus Do-DT25 drones to an established position behind the extended refueling boom of the tanker.
Both the tanker and drones had the Auto’Mate system integrated. The four drones were successively ramp-launched from the Centro de Experimentación de El Arenosillo (CEDEA, Arenosillo test center) at Huelva. Control of each drone was transitioned from ground station to the A310 over the Gulf of Cadiz. The flight test lasted for nearly six hours, during which the drones were sequentially guided by artificial intelligence (AI) and cooperative control algorithms to a position behind the tanker. A minimum distance of 150 feet was achieved.
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