Advances in AI have intensified the focus on autonomous operations, but there are a range of missions in both the military and commercial sectors that require a blend of crewed and uncrewed capabilities. Vertical Plus spoke to leading manufacturers to learn how they are working to support advances in crewed-uncrewed teaming.
Autonomous operations have been a significant focus for Sikorsky for a number of years through various efforts, including its Matrix autonomy technology. Matrix has been used to demonstrate autonomous operations by an S-70 Black Hawk, was used as the foundation of DARPA’s Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System (ALIAS), which aimed to develop a “drop-in” autonomy kit for existing aircraft, and will power the company’s Nomad family of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drones.
More recently, at Verticon 2026, Robinson Helicopter announced the technology would be used to enable autonomous flight for its upcoming R66 TurbineTruck.
In an interview with Vertical Plus, Sikorsky director for strategic requirements and capabilities development Ramsey Bentley said crewed-uncrewed teaming or “human-machine integrated formations” are a growing focus for the company:
“We are looking at not only UAS but UXVs in general: underwater, surface, land and air, crewed-uncrewed teaming capabilities,” he explained. “We are looking to extend the capability of the crewed platform through this uncrewed teaming.”
Such efforts focus on making human operators and crew members more capable in their mission tasks due to the presence of uncrewed systems. In other words, it means “using platform autonomy to reduce the workload of that human crew, so that they can focus on the broader mission capability,” Bentley said.
The approach to Matrix has evolved over the years to reflect these demands, he said. The original focus was on ensuring crew members were safer and boosting survivability, while also helping them to accomplish their mission. This meant preventing controlled flight into terrain, reducing the workload of the crew, and other safety focuses.
“That has quickly evolved into a focus on using that crew and the assigned uncrewed assets to better accomplish missions and provide additional capabilities.”
Mission managers
As part of this evolution, human operators will go from being individual operators of crewed platforms to being “mission managers of multiple uncrewed assets across multiple domains,” Bentley said.
This also can apply to individual platforms, he noted; one of the major focuses of Matrix is to enable platforms like Black Hawks to move between uncrewed and crewed operations, depending on particular mission needs.
For instance, he highlighted a demonstration in April 2025, when a Black Hawk helicopter was controlled remotely by a human operator as it conducted wildfire suppression tests in collaboration with firefighters from the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District. These tests were conducted in partnership with Rain, a developer of wildfire suppression planning software.
“We layered that into our Matrix autonomy, and it enabled our OPV [optionally piloted vehicle] Black Hawk to fully autonomously conduct wildfire suppression,” he explained.
ISR and electronic warfare
Crewed-uncrewed teaming can be deployed in a wide variety of scenarios, opening an array of options to enhance the capabilities of crewed helicopters, said Emmanuel Huberdeau, a spokesperson for Airbus Helicopters. On the military side, one of the most obvious uses is in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), with the UAS used as a remote sensor for the helicopter, deployed by the crew to obtain information for the helicopter’s flight path, landing zone or next target.
In search-and-rescue (SAR) the UAS could help detect and track victims that need to be evacuated. “Teaming with UAS, the helicopter can cover a broad area,” Huberdeau told Vertical Plus.
UAS could also be used in electronic warfare (EW) as jammers or decoys. The platform could “jam enemy radars or create a fake track that would be identified as a valuable target by the enemy, therefore protecting the crewed helicopter,” noted Huberdeau.
And there are a variety of roles in the civil space, including firefighting — monitoring, detecting and tracking wildfires, for instance — as well as in search-and-rescue (SAR) and in law enforcement, with police helicopters using UAS to increase awareness of the tactical picture.
Airbus is currently focused on deploying a solution that can be quickly integrated into a helicopter: this led to the development of the “HTeaming” system, which comprises a modem, four antennas, a tablet and software. It will be available later in 2026, Huberdeau said.
HTeaming is a modular solution that enables helicopter crews to control UAS in flight; it means they can integrate sensors and effectors of uncrewed systems directly into manned helicopter operations. It can either be used as a standalone system or integrated into the helicopter’s mission system, according to Airbus.
Airbus has worked on such crewed-uncrewed teaming for several years, Huberdeau added. In 2018, the company demonstrated that a H145 could take control of a UAS with high levels of interoperability. In 2024, through the EU’s Manned Unmanned System for Helicopter (MUSHER) program, it worked with industry partners to conduct a full-scale demonstration of a crewed-uncrewed teaming system.
In 2025, meanwhile, Airbus worked with the Spanish Navy to conduct a crewed-uncrewed demonstration featuring a H135M and a Flexrotor UAS, while it also announced at the Paris Air Show that it planned to partner with Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) to demonstrate crewed-uncrewed teaming capabilities using a H225M, Flexrotor and HTeaming.
“Other demonstrations are planned in 2026 with military and law enforcement operators,” Huberdeau added.
Reducing the workload
One of the challenges with developing a solution like HTeaming is avoiding an excessive workload for the crew and ensuring it can be used intuitively, said Huberdeau. This has been made possible through progress in UAS autonomy and software development, which means control of unmanned assets can be accomplished from a helicopter with a single tablet.
However, while the current focus is on enabling one crew to control a single UAS, in the near future there will be an option for the crew to control multiple UAS in flight. AI is necessary for this, said Huberdeau.
“UAS have to be able to conduct part of their mission autonomously. The crew on board the helicopter must be able to give orders to the UAS, then the autonomous systems must be able to conduct their missions, following their orders without burdening the operators.”
Additionally, multiple UAS will also mean that more information will be gathered and offered to the helicopter crew. “AI can help analyze and synthetize this information so that the crew has direct access to valuable data.”
Multidomain potential
For Leonardo, crewed-uncrewed teaming is one of the main technology enablers in the modern rotorcraft market, “specifically in the military domain but also with complementary requirements for public service and civil applications,” said a spokesperson.
The company has been involved with a range of projects that aim to accelerate the development of crewed-uncrewed teaming. It has worked on the EU’s MUSHER project, while it has developed a remotely piloted helicopter, the SW-4 “Solo,” which has been used in a range of Leonardo initiatives and in collaboration with industry partners.
Meanwhile, the production variant of the 440-pound (200-kilogram) AWHero UAS is progressing towards military qualification, which would build on crewed-uncrewed teaming capabilities demonstrated in the Ocean2020 demonstration from the European Defence Fund. This was a wide-ranging exercise in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas that demonstrated how uncrewed aircraft and crewed systems could collaborate in maritime surveillance. The exercise also featured the SW-4 Solo.
Among other projects, Leonardo’s involvement in MUSHER saw it conduct demonstration activities in Grottaglie, Italy, involving an AW189 super-medium twin-engine helicopter and the SW-4 Solo technology demonstrator.
“The purpose of the trials was to demonstrate the capability of personnel on the crewed platform’s cabin to have control, at various levels of interoperability, of the remotely piloted aircraft,” the spokesperson told Vertical Plus.
While crewed-uncrewed teaming within the rotorcraft sector remains at a relatively early stage of development, “it is clear this is going to be a major factor for future operations, especially in modern complex multidomain scenarios,” the Leonardo spokesperson continued.
All next-generation military platforms will have collaborative combat or other crewed-uncrewed applications as a key feature, said the spokesperson. “The more this turns into reality, the greater the level of digitization, autonomy, connectivity and cyber-secured design,” they added.
There are some areas of complexity, notably around technological maturity, data gathering and management, computational power, AI sophistication and more. “Time is of the essence to allow this field to become more realistic and feasible,” added the spokesperson.
Incorporating AI
Technological advances in AI, autonomy and resilient networking, however, will be key to unlocking the full potential of the technology. Key enablers include AI decision support (for example, through sensor future, threat prioritization and course of action recommendations), higher onboard autonomy, multi-agent coordination, and improved human-machine interfaces. Predictive maintenance will also be vital to boost availability.
These are crucial focuses for Leonardo, added the spokesperson, through such efforts as its Proteus rotary-wing uncrewed air system (RWUAS) technology demonstrator program.
“There is extensive use of AI/ML in the development of mission algorithms, enabling a wide range of autonomous functionalities, including real-time advanced flight planning that ensures adaptability in rapidly evolving operational scenarios, even in denied or contested environments,” the spokesperson explained.
To ensure interoperability between platforms, there will need to be standardization of protocols, connectivity and data exchange, as well as robust cybersecurity guidelines. Still, this is not dissimilar from efforts pursued at NATO level in different technology areas for decades.
“Crucially, interoperability depends on robust standardization, supported by clear, commonly agreed guidelines, standards and regulations. Industry can actively contribute, through technical input [and] demonstrations, but governmental and regulatory authorities typically play the leading role in setting the overarching frameworks,” the spokesperson said, noting that initiatives like MUSHER are supporting movement in this direction by encouraging convergence on common approaches.
Future ambitions
At a wider technological level, advances in AI/ML will be key, concluded the Leonardo spokesperson, noting that crewed-uncrewed teaming is both a force multiplier and a workload generator, with the crew needing to remain focused on controlling the UAS and its payload as well as sensors and systems on the crewed platform.
AI will help to reduce this workload, managing a rapidly increasing flow and amount of data, maintaining and enhancing the operational tempo delivered by crewed assets, and utilizing uncrewed assets to increase mass, acquire and distribute battlespace data, and accelerate decision-making.
“The next step that we’re actively exploring and developing is full autonomy,” said the Leonardo spokesperson, “balancing the growing need for rapid, effective autonomous decision-making and persistence with the enduring value of human judgment.”
Interoperability between different platforms will be crucial looking forward, said Bentley. The synergy between such systems will be hugely impactful, he said, pointing to the impact that huge volumes of drones have had on the battlefield in Ukraine.
He pointed to the importance of such interoperability for army operators, using the example of a crewed helicopter launching a UAS for over-the-horizon reconnaissance.
“The ability for a helicopter to deliver a small UAS hundreds of kilometers in the distance and then have that information flow back into the maneuver commander that is approaching a target or approaching an area of operations is really game-changing.”