Leonardo unveils the design of its Proteus uncrewed rotorcraft technology demonstrator
January 7, 2025
The new uncrewed rotorcraft will be used to demonstrate advances in autonomy and payload modularity and interchangeability, whilst developing cutting-edge rotorcraft technologies including new design and manufacturing techniques. The Proteus will demonstrate the viability of large UAS in the maritime environment and will function as a test bed for the development and demonstration of autonomous capability. This includes flight control laws and algorithms for large autonomous Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft, and the use of AI in its control software.
A low-risk concept, Proteus has modularity and autonomy at its core. The multi-role air vehicle will carry out on-board decision-making at a level not seen before, with the aim of delivering for future mission successes at the project’s heart.
The development of Proteus will support the Royal Navy’s Maritime Aviation Transformation (MATx) strategy, which covers the evolution of maritime aviation out to 2040. This includes building mass at sea and supporting future anti-submarine warfare missions.
Leonardo’s site in Yeovil, the former Westland Helicopters factory, is today the ‘Home of British Helicopters’, where the company is pursuing an aggressive autonomy development roadmap. This covers the capabilities required to conduct autonomous flight and to use autonomous unmanned vehicles to deliver mission capability. To achieve this, the company maturing and testing a range of transformative technologies and techniques, for the design and manufacture of rotorcraft as well as for use on-board the aircraft itself.
Leonardo has created a ‘digital twin’ of the Proteus technology demonstrator to aid in development. By using this digital twin, as well as AI and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in a synthetic environment, Leonardo will be able to test, modify and prove capability without the need for live aircraft trials, thereby reducing costs and significantly accelerating development when compared to traditional rotorcraft programmes.
Leonardo is also experimenting with the application of new digital manufacturing technologies in rotorcraft production, including additive layer manufacturing (3D printing) and the use of cost-effective low temperature cure composite materials, which require fewer manufacturing stages in the production of parts. More than 40 components have been manufactured using advanced composite materials.
Once proven, these technologies will be employed more extensively to deliver agility through spiral development techniques, to reduce through-life costs in comparison to conventional crewed aircraft and to improve manufacturing resilience and sustainability throughout Leonardo’s supply chain.
In addition to innovating in technologies, Leonardo is also using the Proteus programme to transform its approach to collaboration with customers and end users. The company is drawing on ‘Agile’ methodology that breaks the project into phases and emphasises continuous collaboration and improvement. This closer collaboration between Leonardo, DE&S and the Royal Navy has enabled the €71M (£60M) project, initially contracted as a Technology Development Programme (TDP) in June 2022, to move forward at pace. The demonstrator is on-track to fly for the first time in mid-2025.
Proteus is an evolution of the MOD’s Rotary Wing Uncrewed Air System (RWUAS) Concept Capability Demonstrator (CCD), which Leonardo has been involved with since 2013. In July 2022, Leonardo was awarded a four-year contract for the RWUAS CCD Phase 3 Technology Demonstration Programme (TDP).
A conceptually mature Proteus design was unveiled at DSEI in London, in September 2023, by Leonardo and the MOD. It was said that there was an ambition for this 2-3 tonne technology demonstrator to fly in the middle of this decade. The DSEI model looked very similar to the latest Proteus CGI, albeit with a conventional tail rotor rather than a fenestron, and with a more complex tailplane design, but in any case, by May 2024, company CGIs were showing an aircraft that resembled the latest CGI even more closely.
The circa three-tonne Proteus technology demonstrator unveiled on 7 January, will draw on components from across Leonardo’s helicopter portfolio in order to reduce costs and accelerate aircraft development. Leonardo has also drawn on knowledge and experience from across its existing Uncrewed Air System (UAS) programmes.
Unusually, the Proteus features a modular payload bay. This is designed to enable flexibility in mission roles, including the ability to trade fuel for mission payload. CGIs have been seen illustrating a variety of alternative modules, including logistics stores, sonobuoys and launchers, a dipping sonar installation, and even a neat ASaC (Airborne Surveillance and Control or AEW) radar.
The ability to plug in specific payloads for different missions aims to give commanders in the field a wide range of options from a single type of aircraft. This is both operationally useful and delivers value for money by avoiding the need to buy and maintain multiple different fleets of aircraft.
