High Endurance Aircraft - Flight
Control
High Endurance aircraft naturally can take advantage
of a significant amount of autonomy. With an aircraft that is
in-flight for weeks or months, a pilot cannot be used to actively
remotely-pilot the craft the entire time. Ideally, the aircraft
should be able to takeoff, complete its mission (or set of missions)
and then land completely autonomously. However, in order to enable
ground-control to effectively manage the plane or correct for
errors, the communication systems must be improved. Currently,
the use of optical and laser systems is limited as the bandwidth
is almost entirely consumed by a single aircraft. NASA is looking
for improvements in autonomy and the communication systems in
order to facilitate complete autonomy.
Related Resources
Keywords
Aircraft communication; Autonomous air navigation; Computer programs; ERAST;
Flight controls; Fuzzy system; Helios; Intelligent Flight Control System;
Unmanned aerial vehicle
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