The New Military Applications of Precision Airdrop Systems

Benney, Richard; Barber, Justin; McGrath, Joseph; McHugh, Jaclyn; Noetscher, Greg; Tavan, Steve

doi:10.2514/6.2005-7069

Cited by 15 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Precision drops have been researched for both civil and military use: Williams and Trivailo (2006) discusses a technique for cable guided delivery from a fixed-wing manned aircraft, Wright et al (2005), Benney et al (2005), Tavan (2006) and Joshua and Eaton (2013) describe a military precision airdrop system from fixed-wing aircrafts, using a steerable parachute to guide large cargo to the ground. Klein and Rogers (2015) presents simulation results where a probabilistic mission planner for unguided drops with parachutes is used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous ballistic airdrop of objects from a small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle

et al. 2020

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Autonomous airdrop is a useful basic operation for a fixed-wing unmanned aerial system. Being able to deliver an object to a known target position extends operational range without risking human lives, but is still limited to known delivery locations. If the fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle delivering the object could also recognize its target, the system would take one step further in the direction of autonomy. This paper presents a closed-loop autonomous delivery system that uses machine vision to identify a target marked with a distinct colour, calculates the geographical coordinates of the target location and plans a path to a release point, where it delivers the object. Experimental results present a visual target estimator with a mean error distance of 3.4 m and objects delivered with a mean error distance of 5.5 m.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous ballistic airdrop of objects from a small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle

et al. 2020

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“…Another intuitive approach is to drop the payload directly from the body of the aircraft. A lot of research was done to develop a Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS), which uses steerable parachutes to guide a load to the given location, meant for military use to deliver supplies and to sustain combat power, Wright et al (2005), Benney et al (2005), Joshua and Eaton (2013), Tavan (2006). However, a steerable parachute would be unsuited for our purpose: Mainly it would be too expensive, as it could not be reused, and it would also be very difficult to control a very light-weight payload with a parachute in the presence of wind.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approach Methods for Autonomous Precision Aerial Drop from a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

2017

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Abstract:One of the many basic operations that a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) should master autonomously is to deliver an object to a precise position. Among several possible delivery approaches, this paper chooses to focus on releasing the object from the UAV, at a carefully calculated state, and let it fall freely to the selected landing location. In such an operation, the computation of suitable release positions, velocity and attitude is essential. Due to time-varying disturbances like wind, a previously calculated release state may not be suitable once it has been reached by the aircraft. On account of these challenges, this paper suggests a dynamic calculation of the release state with respect to the wind velocity and current state of the UAV, with a sufficient re-optimization frequency. This is tested in simulation and with field tests, and compared with results from a static calculation approach.

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“…Parafoil dynamics are highly nonlinear and underactuated, with large turning radii and severely limited or no vertical control, resulting in a descent rate which is influenced primarily by atmospheric conditions and wind disturbances [1]. Parafoil drop locations are often difficult to reach and may be surrounded by arbitrary, nonconvex terrain that can pose a significant problem for constraint satisfaction, even if mapped in advance [2,3]. Parafoils are also subject to uncertain and variable wind environments, which, if uncompensated, can result in large deviations between predicted and actual trajectories, and undesirable landing errors [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While unguided airdrop systems have traditionally been constrained to low release altitudes to maintain acceptable landing accuracy, parafoils can be released from much higher altitudes and larger aircraft standoff distances with the potential for significantly improved accuracy and precision [11]. This result is particularly beneficial for both military resupply applications and airdrop scenarios involving challenging environmental terrain, for which low release altitudes may be dangerous or inaccessible to cargo aircraft [2]. Although advancements in the calculation of the Computed Air…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The application of parafoils to military resupply helped to accelerate the design process, leading to improvements in atmospheric wind prediction, high-fidelity parafoil simulation models, and extensive flight test experiments [10, 16,17]. Many of these developments took place as part of a combined initiative between the U.S. Army and the Air Force known as the Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) [2,18], along with predecessor programs such as New World Vistas (NWV) and the Precision Guided Airdrop System (PGAS) [16,19]. The U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC) continues to oversee JPADS research to enhance the capability of guided airdrop systems ranging from 10-42,000 pounds [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analytic Chance Constraints for the Robust Guidance of Autonomous Parafoils

Ellertson

2016

AIAA Infotech @ Aerospace

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Autonomously guided parafoil systems can deliver supplies and aid to remote, geographically diverse locations, while providing important safety and logistical advantages over ground-based transportation methods. A key challenge facing modern airborne delivery systems, such as parafoils, is the ability to accurately and consistently deliver supplies into difficult, complex terrain. Parafoil guidance algorithms must be able to generate feasible trajectory solutions to the target location within highly constrained terrain environments and from a wide range of initial conditions. Robustness is critical for successful payload delivery in the presence of uncertain atmospheric wind disturbances.This thesis presents two online trajectory planning algorithms for autonomous parafoil guidance in complex terrain and wind environments. These -algorithms are capable of operating from arbitrary initial conditions, including altitude, and are robust to wind disturbances that may be highly dynamic throughout terminal descent. The first algorithm, known as Analytic CC-RRT, builds upon the framework of chance-constrained rapidly-exploring random trees (CC-RRT). This planner enables fast incremental trajectory construction in cluttered, non-convex environments, while using chance constraints to ensure probabilistic feasibility. The designed costto-go function prioritizes target accuracy and upwind landings through the selection of partial paths that intelligently consider current and reachable future states. A trained multi-class wind uncertainty model is introduced to classify and anticipate the effect of future wind disturbances online. Utilizing this model, robustness to wind variations is achieved via a novel analytic uncertainty sampling technique, allowing the probability of constraint violation to be efficiently evaluated against arbitrary and aggressive terrain.The second algorithm, known as CC-BLG, incorporates the Analytic CC-RRT proactive wind model and uncertainty sampling technique into the optimized BandLimited Guidance (BLG) framework. Through the design of a novel risk-based objective function, CC-BLG trajectories efficiently balance the parafoil performance metrics of landing accuracy and landing speed with the risk of off-nominal terrain 3 collisions caused by future wind disturbances. Proposed extensions to the analytic uncertainty sampling technique are shown to yield enhanced planning robustness by refining the estimation of trajectory risk. Multi-phase CC-BLG path planning enables initialization of parafoil terminal guidance from potentially high altitudes, while discrete reachability set approximation is used to maintain robust obstacle avoidance over disjoint planning horizons.Extensive Monte Carlo simulation analysis demonstrates that the Analytic CC-RRT and CC-BLG algorithms achieve significant improvements in mean and worstcase landing accuracy within complex terrain scenarios relative to the state-of-the-art Band-Limited Guidance (BLG) algorithm. Flight test experiments conducted with a full-scal...

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The New Military Applications of Precision Airdrop Systems

Cited by 15 publications

References 3 publications

Autonomous ballistic airdrop of objects from a small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle

Autonomous ballistic airdrop of objects from a small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle

Approach Methods for Autonomous Precision Aerial Drop from a Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Analytic Chance Constraints for the Robust Guidance of Autonomous Parafoils

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