Robust Autonomous Ship Deck Landing for Rotorcraft

Landing rotorcraft on a ship deck is a difficult and dangerous task. The US Navy is interested in expanding landing capabilities in degraded visual environments, with impaired or no GPS signal, and in autonomous operations, while at the same time reducing the cost of guidance infrastructure on the ship deck. This paper describes how a suite of multi-modal sensors can provide relative pose estimate from an aircraft to a ship deck in a wide range of conditions. The sensor suite enables robust performance while requiring minimal deck side infrastructure. We describe a three-phase trajectory planner that allow for safe, autonomous landing on a ship deck based on the relative pose estimate from the sensor suite and knowledge of the aircraft dynamics. At the aircraft approaches the ship, the trajectory planner uses a ship deck motion model to time the landing for minimal touchdown impact.