DARPA contracts BAE to progress ‘revolutionary' aircraft design

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has contracted BAE Systems to progress “revolutionary” aircraft design and testing.

A screenshot of a BAE Systems video conceptualising its Project CRANE contract from DARPA to revolutionise aircraft design. (BAE Systems)

The award, announced on 7 September, covers the design of a full-scale demonstrator concept with active flow control (AFC) at its core.

“The aircraft's ability to manoeuvre in flight without conventional flight control surfaces will enable improved performance, maintainability, and survivability,” BAE Systems said.

As noted by the UK-based company, its award forms part of DARPA's wider Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) project, “which intends to inject active flow control technology early into the aircraft design process to demonstrate significant efficiency benefits, as well as improvements to aircraft cost, weight, performance, and reliability”.

While no value for the award was disclosed, BAE Systems said that it will perform the design, integration, and de-risking activities, including wind tunnel testing, at its facilities in the northwest England in 2022.

“As military aircraft confront increasingly contested and sophisticated threat environments, active flow control offers potential military benefits that could deliver operational advantage in the battlespace. Active flow control technologies can supplement or replace conventional moveable control surfaces to improve the performance of an aircraft at various points in the flight regime, as well as reduce mass and volume compared to aircraft with conventional controls to enable greater payloads and greater flexibility to the operator,” BAE Systems noted.