Sikorsky Aircraft’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Cypher: System Description and Program Accomplishments

Sikorsky Aircraft is developing an unmanned vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) system to meet a wide variety of civil and military mission requirements. The Sikorsky system, named Cypher, is based on a shrouded rotor VTOL unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to be versatile, safe, and simple to operate. The validity of the Cypher concept has been proven through the development and flight testing of a Cypher Technology Demonstrator aircraft. A background description of the Cypher program and a summary of the flight test results are presented in this paper.