The Office of Naval Research (ONR) recently awarded contracts for pursuing new technologies designed to enhance the autonomy of unmanned aerial cargo systems.

ONR said last week it’s initially providing $28 million to teams lead by Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Aurora Flight Sciences to develop robotic rotorcraft to support rapid autonomous aerial cargo delivery to the battlefield.

The Autonomous Aerial Cargo Utility System (AACUS) program is intended to support units under hostile conditions and it’s envisioned to eventually allow war fighters to give instructions to the system with a device similar to a smart phone.

“AACUS responds to warfighter needs derived from our experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Mike Deitchman, who heads ONR’s Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department, said. “We are trying to develop an autonomous system to deliver supplies to the battlefront more quickly-and to get our vehicle convoys off dangerous roads, where they’re much more vulnerable to attack.”

The initiative is part of a five-year, $98 million effort to develop sensors and control technologies for robotic rotorcraft.

Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder, the chief of ONR, spoke about the AACUS during a presentation in February and said the goal is to build on the progress that has been made through the Navy and Marine Corps Cargo UAS program. Two K-MAX unmanned helicopters have been operating in Afghanistan since late last year, autonomously delivering cargo to Marines in remote areas of the country. They were developed by Lockheed Martin and Kaman Aerospace [KAMN] under an urgent requirement to counter ambushes or roadside bomb attacks on ground convoys.

Klunder said he wants to add to that capability, and envisions a system that would be able to operate on the basis of “intelligent logic” and allow the helicopter to assess terrain and safe landing zones and then inform Marines on the ground of where it intends to touch down. Klunder said he foresees a system easier to operate for “Joe Marine” on the ground through the use of smartphone style technology that would allow soldiers to quickly tell the aircraft where to go and let it carry out the mission on its own.

“We currently have UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that we can take into theater and we can autonomously bring them into a pre-designated spot and offload,” Klunder said .

“Now what I am talking about, through using intelligent logic in our system, I can now allow that air vehicle–manned or unmanned–to scan the environment and judge: Here’s a good place to land to support a Marine Corps unit that is in this area,” he said.