Arthur McMiler 
- SNC’s DVEPS sensor suite is geared to provide flight capability in obscured conditions
- DVEPS combines lidar and infrared data into a live 3D terrain model
- The aircraft is the flight testbed for the Army’s Strategic Autonomy Flight Enabler program
The U.S. Army plans to equip its H-60Mx Optimally Piloted Vehicle, an experimental autonomous Black Hawk, with Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Degraded Visual Environment Pilotage System, or DVEPS, to serve as its primary sensor for flight in obscured conditions.
SNC announced the planned installation Tuesday.
What Does DVEPS Add to the H-60Mx OPV?
DVEPS works to merge lidar data with passive infrared imagery to produce a constantly refreshed 3D model of terrain, obstacles and hazards. The system is designed to run in an automatic “set-and-forget” mode.
SNC already builds the system for U.S. Special Operations Command, which awarded the company a potential $471.6 million contract in June 2025 to produce and maintain DVEPS units.
Scott Gallaway, SNC’s vice president for government relations and a former Army Apache pilot, said the suite interprets its surroundings instead of providing raw data for a person to analyze. “Installing it on the H-60Mx OPV converts a pilot-aid system into a machine-perception system, giving the aircraft’s autonomy software the equivalent of trained eyes rather than an unfiltered camera feed,” he said.
Gallaway noted that sand or snow stirred up by rotor wash just before touchdown can blind crews, a hazard tied to fatal combat accidents.
How Did the Army’s Autonomous Black Hawk Testbed Take Shape?
Sikorsky converted a standard UH-60M into the H-60Mx by adding fly-by-wire controls and its MATRIX autonomy software, enabling the helicopter to fly with a smaller crew, one remote operator or nobody aboard. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which funded MATRIX under its Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automation System program, transitioned the aircraft to the Army for operational testing in March.
The helicopter now serves as the flight test platform for the Army’s Strategic Autonomy Flight Enabler, or SAFE, program. SAFE seeks to develop a scalable autonomy kit for Black Hawk modernization that can also mature autonomy for Future Vertical Lift aircraft.
What Will the Army Evaluate on the DVEPS-Equipped Helicopter?
Once installed, DVEPS will support development, integration and operational trials of the platform and its mission systems. Testing will extend to autonomy packages from outside developers and to air-launched effects, which the service has previously flown from crewed Black Hawks.
The work adds to SNC’s national security portfolio, which includes radio frequency sensing for the National Reconnaissance Office and a role on the Palantir-led team building the Army’s Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node ground station prototypes.
