Flight-control systems development enabling autonomous unmanned air vehicle (UAV) operations has made advances in recent tests. The Atlanta-based Georgia Institute of Technology has demonstrated autonomous reconfiguration of a flight-control system after anin-flight failure, while Athena Technologies has flight-tested a compact control system with integrated inertial navigation and global positioning.
Flight tests of Georgia Tech's GTMax unmanned helicopter demonstrated autonomous dynamic low-altitude flight control reconfiguration using a software architecture developed by a Boeing Phantom Works-led team. The Open Control Platform (OCP) software compensated for a control-system failure. Future experiments are planned to demonstrate extreme UAV agility, needed to avoid threats, and the co-ordinated control of multiple vehicles.
The OCP, based on a software architecture known as RT Cobra, is an open system able to handle large amounts of data in real time. Georgia Tech describes the flight tests as a "milestone" because, previously, open "plug-and-play" software systems have not been able to provide the 100Hz update rate needed to control an unmanned helicopter autonomously and dynamically.
Athena, meanwhile, has demonstrated its GuideStar GS-111 autonomous flight-control system in tests of the Team iStar organic air vehicle and Raytheon loitering attack munition. The low-cost GS-111 combines flight-control computer, solid-state inertial navigation system (INS), global positioning system (GPS) and air-data sensors in one 0.8kg (1.7lb) package.
The INS and GPS data are combined to provide all-attitude vehicle dynamic state information with the accuracy and update rate required for autonomous flight control.
Source: Flight International
