August 2, 2006
Autonomous Autogyro Flight
This is fairly interesting, combining two of my great interests: Autogyros and Robotics. The Piasecki corporation has recently (according to this press release) demonstrated autonomous flight with an autogyro. I have always felt that autogyros could be quite useful in the autonomous role, and think that this is a good step forward.
Posted by elkaim at August 2, 2006 3:07 PMPiasecki Aircraft Corporation (PiAC) announced today the successful flight of the world’s first autogyro with Level 4 autonomy; flying a mission consisting of navigation through multiple pre-programmed waypoints. The system incorporates a 6-DoF model provided by Georgia Tech with autonomy system components supplied by Geneva Aerospace and integrated by Piasecki onto a commercial kit autogyro platform. The system was flown as part of a company funded technology demonstration program supporting the development of a system for the US Army FCS Air Guard Class III UAV program.
Building on this success, PiAC will continue expanding the flight envelope of the
system, incorporating Level 5 autonomous take-off and landing, as well as
integration of a mission management and control system being developed by
team member Lockheed Martin Systems Integration Owego, NY (LMSI-O). The
FCS Air Guard Team includes PiAC, LMSI-O, and Belzon (Huntsville, AL).