Thu, 20 Mar 2025

Thu, 20 Mar 2025 Engineers building 'helicopter that flies itself'

Engineers are building a helicopter that is set to fly itself - without humans operating it remotely.

* Engineers at Leonardo Helicopters UK in Yeovil, Somerset, are building an autonomous helicopter called Proteus, which can fly itself without human control.
* The project is a research program for the Royal Navy, designed to see what's possible with autonomous aircraft.
* The Proteus helicopter will be able to carry out missions such as dropping sonar buoys in the sea and flying over small fishing boats without human intervention.
* The team hopes to fly the new aircraft "in the summer" at a secret location, far from any towns or villages.
* Experts say that militaries around the world are increasingly relying on automation and machine learning to reduce individual risk in missions.
* The Proteus project is not expected to result in large-scale production of autonomous helicopters, but rather aims to explore what's possible with this technology.
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