Athena Technologies has successfully demonstrated an autonomous recovery of a subscale F/A-18 UAV with artificially induced inflight damage. The injected 'battle damage" was the inflight loss of an aileron surface. The demonstration was for display of the increased mission reliability of UAVs and Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) operating in hazardous and high-threat environments. It is a capability that could be applicable to all military aircraft operating in combat environments. It is also relevant to any vehicle, manned or unmanned, including civilian aircraft, that might sustain physical damage or failures that impact controlled flight. Athena’s flight control systems are used to control and autonomously land hundreds of UAVs in operation in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its controls technology is based on unique algorithms that have been developed and evolved over the last 15 years. The company’s comprehensive suite of evolved control algorithms has been built on experience achieved on a variety of UAVs and through flying over 160,000 hours in combat theaters. Videos of the flight demonstration can be viewed at this link .