N102-172 TITLE: Advanced Flight Controls for Ultra-agile Small Unmanned Air Vehicles

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Ground/Sea Vehicles

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA263, Navy STUAS

OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate advanced flight control algorithms tailored towards multi-flight-mode Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) that are suitable for efficient thrust-borne and wing-borne flight in challenging maritime environments.

DESCRIPTION: Current small Unmanned Air Vehicle Systems (UASs) have great potential for Department of Defense applications. However, the large launch and recovery footprint of current systems, limited range and persistence, and operational and basing in-flexibility of today�s UASs prevent them from being utilized to their full potential. Technologies are needed that facilitate the development of small (<150 lbs gross weight) Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that have mission range and endurance far surpassing the current state of the art. For example, the current Scan Eagle UAV, with video payload has a range of approximately 2,500 km and an endurance of approximately 25 hrs. With advanced rotor designs and flight controls, the objective is to increase these values by at least 50% and gain VTOL capability to allow for stop-and-stare sensor operations and more flexible basing concepts on sea-based platforms. A vehicle with this capability requires a versatile auto-pilot that is able to control the aircraft in both VTOL and cruise, as well as conversion modes of flight in a variety of environmental conditions. Navy UAVs are required to be operated from sea-based platforms which include large ships for blue-water operations, smaller vessels in the littorals, submarines and unmanned surface vessels. UAVs operating from at-sea platforms must be agile enough to perform in a variety of challenging environmental conditions including operations from fast-moving vessels, gusty winds and turbulence from ship super-structures.

PHASE I: Develop the auto-pilot/flight-control architecture that would be used for phase II demonstration. Lab and/or limited flight demonstrations of flight control functionality are highly desirable. A test vehicle for phase II demonstration should be identified and in a sufficiently advanced stage of development suitable for phase II demonstration.

PHASE II: Develop an auto-pilot/flight control system and integrate into a demonstration air-vehicle. Conduct flight tests to demonstrate air-vehicle control in VTOL, conversion and cruise(wing-borne flight). The ability to maintain air-vehicle control and precise ground position-keeping in variable winds up to 25 kts is highly desirable.

PHASE III: The phase III will entail advanced development of the small unmanned air-vehicle concept accompanied by testing and demonstration in operationally representative environments. Sea-trails with full demonstration of launch, execution of mission relevant flight profiles and recovery fall within the scope of the phase III. The phase III product would be at a technical readiness level (TRL) of 6 and suitable for transition to acquisition.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: Small UAVs are becoming increasingly sought-after by law-enforcement, border patrol, disaster surveillance teams, farm applications, meteorology, climate change data collection and geological surveys. As the FAA moves towards certification of UAV operation in commercial airspace, the value of small UAVs will increase significantly, particularly with the high level of capability of this vehicle concept.

REFERENCES:
1. Mark A. Motter, "Adaptive Flight Control Research at NASA", http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20080022957_2008021658.pdf.

2. Anthony J. Calise, Rolf T. Rysdyk, "Nonlinear Adaptive Flight Control using Neural Networks", http://www.aa.washington.edu/research/afsl/publications/rysdyk1998adaptiveNN.pdf.

KEYWORDS: UAV; flight controls; autopilot; ship launch and recovery; autonomous; UAS

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

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