Browse Topic: Automatic pilots
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become prevalent in many fields in the modern world, ranging from vacuum cleaners to lawn mowers and commercial automobiles. These capabilities are continuing to evolve and become a part of more products and systems every day, with numerous potential benefits to humans. AI is of particular interest in autonomous vehicles (AVs), where the benefits include reduced cognitive workload, increased efficiency, and improved safety for human operators. Numerous investments from academia and industry have been made recently with the intent of improving the enabling technologies for AVs. Google and Tesla are two of the more well-known examples in industry, with Google developing a self-driving car and Tesla providing its Full Self-Driving (FSD) autopilot system. Ford and BMW are also working on their own AVs.
The development of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) is progressing fast. Yet, safety and standardization-related discussions are limited due to the recent nature of the sector. Despite the effort that is initiated to kick-start the study, awareness among practitioners is still low. Hence, further effort is required to stimulate this discussion. Among the available works on CAV safety, some of them take inspiration from the aviation sector that has strict safety regulations. The underlying reason is the experience that has been gained over the decades. However, the literature still lacks a thorough association between automation in aviation and the CAV from the safety perspective. As such, this paper motivates the adoption of safe-automation knowledge from aviation to facilitate safer CAV systems. The authors briefly elaborate on the widely discussed aviation themes, including autopilot and auto-throttle malfunctions, flight management system, human factors, and suggests how
This document addresses the operational safety and human factors aspects of unauthorized laser illumination events in navigable airspace. The topics addressed include operational procedures, training, and protocols that flight crew members should follow in the event of a laser exposure. Of particular emphasis, this document outlines coping strategies for use during critical phases of flight. Although lasers are capable of causing retinal damage, most laser cockpit illuminations, to date, has been relatively low in irradiance causing primarily startle reactions, visual glare, flashblindness and afterimages. Permanent eye injuries from unauthorized laser exposures have been extremely rare. This document describes pilot operational procedures in response to the visual disruptions associated with low to moderate laser exposures that pilots are most likely to encounter during flight operations. With education and training, pilots can take actions that safeguard both their vision and the
This SAE Aerospace Standard (AS) covers automatic pilots intended for use on aircraft to automatically operate the primary and trim aerodynamic controls to maintain stable flight and/or to provide maneuvering about any of the three axes through servo control. Automatic control functions essential for primary or augmented flight control are excluded.
These recommendations cover the mechanical and electrical installation and installation test procedures for automatic pilots of the type normally used in transport type aircraft. The material in this ARP does not supercede any airworthiness requirement in the Civil Air Regulations.
This SAE Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP) provides general requirements for a generic “passive” side stick that could be used for fly by wire transport and business aircraft. It addresses the following: The functions to be implemented The geometric and mechanical characteristics The mechanical and electrical interfaces The safety and certification requirements
Level 2 (L2) partially automated vehicle systems require the driver to continuously monitor the driving environment and be prepared to take control immediately if necessary. One of the main challenges facing developers of these systems is how to ensure that drivers understand their role and stay alert as the systems require. With little real world data, it has been difficult to understand user attitudes and behaviors toward the implementation and use of partially automated vehicles. At the time of this study, Tesla was one of the few OEMs with a partially automated vehicle feature available on the market; Autopilot. In order to understand how customers interact with a partially automated vehicle, a study was conducted to observe people driving their own Tesla vehicles while autopilot was engaged. Sixteen Tesla owners (14 males and 2 females) between ages 25 to 60 had their vehicles instrumented with video/audio data collection systems for three consecutive days. These owners were
Today's vehicles are being more often equipped with systems, which are autonomously influencing the vehicle behavior. More systems of the kind and even fully autonomous vehicles in regular traffic are expected by OEMs in Europe around year 2025. Driving is highly multitasking activity and human errors emerge in situations, when he is unable to process and understand the essential amount of information. Future autonomous systems very often rely on some type of inter-vehicular communication. This shall provide the vehicle with higher amount of information, than driver uses in his decision making process. Therefore, currently used 1-D quantity TTC (time-to-collision) will become inadequate. Regardless the vehicle is driven by human or robot, it’s always necessary to know, whether and which reaction is necessary to perform. Adaptable autonomous vehicle systems will need to analyze the driver’s situation awareness level. Such knowledge can be enhanced by 2-D quantity, so called reaction
Switching controls are those that can switch between control or plant modes to perform their functions. They have the advantage of being simpler to design than an equivalent control system with a single mode. However, the transients between those modes can introduce steps or overshootings in the state variables, and this can degrade the performance or even damage the control or the plant. So, the smoothing of such transients is vital for their reliability and mantainability. This is can be of extreme importance in the aerospace and automotive fields, plenty of switchings between manual and autopilot modes via relays, or among gears via clutches, for example. In this work, we present a first strategy for smoothing transients in switching controls of aerospace and automotive systems. To do that, we review the literature, present and adopt a criterion to determine the coefficients of a control system which should optimize the trajectory of the control signal during the switching between
There are many applications for Autonomous Seaborne Vessels (ASVs). The seaborne cargo shipping industry moves over 9 billion tons of cargo per year, is worth $375 billion, and is responsible for 90 percent of world trade. Autonomous cargo ships could reduce the operating expenses of cargo ships by 44%. ASVs can also be used by the military for surveillance, and for autopilot of pleasure ships.
Control systems that can switch between control or plant modes have the advantage of being simpler to design than an equivalent system with a single mode. However, the transition between these modes can introduce steps or overshootings in the state variables, and this can degrade the performance or even damage the system. This is can be of extreme importance in fields such as aerospace and automobilistic, as the switching between manual and autopilot modes or the switching of gears In this work, we will use integral criteria in original ways, to determine a coefficient on the system which should optimize the trajectory of the control signal, during the switching between two modes. Effectively, each transition will be done by a subsystem specific for it, according to the selected criterion. The simulations will be made in MATRIXx, MatLab or both, using models chosen from aerospace or automobilistic fields.
A long endurance high efficiency Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is being developed by a group of researchers and students in the Mechanical Engineering Technology program at Algonquin College, Ottawa, ON, Canada. The design is based on a tailless, staggered tandem wing configuration, with a carbon fiber frame and electric propulsion. The developed aircraft has a maximum weight of 12.5 kg, well within the 25 kg limit outlined by Transport Canada for permission-free operation. The UAV was designed to fly missions exceeding 24 hours, performing surveillance and oil pipeline monitoring and inspection, either autonomously or under radio control from a ground station, with medium to high payload capacity. This paper describes the process of designing, manufacturing and testing the developed configuration. The operational requirements are delineated as conceptualized by the development team. A description of the prototype development, including aerodynamics, structural and stability
The dynamics in the vicinity of small bodies are highly nonlinear. Trajectory design in small-body environments requires accurate gravity and solar radiation pressure models to guarantee the satisfaction of spacecraft operational constraints such as thruster silent times, state, and control constraints. The G-PROX guidance algorithm generates fuel-optimal trajectories in the vicinity of asteroids and small bodies. The non-convexity in the control constraints is handled with the lossless convexification technique, which is a convex relaxation of the control constraints. G-PROX uses sequential convex programming and solves a convergent sequence of convex optimization problems generated via sequential linearization of both the dynamics and control bounds, synergistically combined with lossless convexification. The sequence of convex optimization problems converges to a locally optimal solution of the original nonlinear non-convex problem.
This specification established (1) the common requirements for hydraulic units capable of functioning as starters and as pumps suitable for use in aircraft and missiles and (2) the methods to be used for demonstrating compliance with these requirements.
In this paper, we study a problem of control system design for small-scale helicopter that has been applied to a robotic helicopter project. The structure of the mathematical models of single-rotor helicopter and the description of its constituent elements are presented. The general mathematical model of a helicopter is a complex multivariable system. This model consists of nonlinear differential equations of the helicopter dynamics, the kinematics and auxiliary equations. The control forces and moments, and also the external disturbances, that affecting on helicopter flight, are in the right side of the dynamic equations. It is necessary to have experimental data for helicopter flight parameters to get adequate auxiliary equations. Those equations have been applied to associate the control forces and moments, to control positions of actuators. In this paper we present the experimental results, estimation algorithms and data-processing. The experimental study includes a series of test
This Aeronautical Standard covers Automatic Pilots intended for use on aircraft to automatically operate the aerodynamic controls to maintain flight and/or to provide maneuvering about the three axes through servo control.
In this paper a control system design for robotic airship is developed. The nonlinear multilinked mathematic model of airship is considered. The results of aerodynamic analysis, parametric and structure disturbances estimation, nonlinear control algorithms are presented. Airship motion simulator is developed and successfully applied. Airship is implemented on experimental robotic mini-airship.
In the development process, the test phase is considered the most important challenge for designers of safety critical avionic systems found in modern helicopters. Indeed, these Test Systems often operate in uncertain conditions and they must provide safety, fault tolerance, and deterministic timing guarantees. Due to the ever-changing face of technology, the Eurocopter research department leads to the development of Pro- Active Test Systems. In the current state-of-the-art industrial practice, different test benches are used for the verification of various helicopter ranges (EC175, EC135, etc.) and Unit(s)-Under-Test (UUTs) (automatic pilot, navigation, etc.). Each test bench relies on a specific hardware architecture and software tools. This is due to the heterogeneity of the helicopter parts (which are under test) in terms of computing requirements and handled data structures. In general, several specialised CPU boards are needed to satisfy real time constraints which lead to
These recommendations cover the mechanical and electrical installation and installation test procedures for automatic pilots of the type normally used in transport type aircraft. The material in this ARP does not supercede any airworthiness requirement in the Civil Air Regulations.
A two-processor autopilot control system for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been proposed and partly developed. Relative to prior such systems, this would be a lightweight, inexpensive autopilot system offering enhanced computational power and flexibility that would enable the use of the system in a variety of advanced UAVs. The two-processor architecture represents a significant departure from most prior single-processor UAV-autopilot architectures. Moreover, because this particular two-processor architecture is an open one, based on the use of commercial- off-the-shelf (COTS) processors and other COTS electronic subsystems, the system could easily be upgraded to take advantage of available state-of-the-art equipment.
A report briefly describes a user's guide for a computer program that constructs vector wind profiles on the basis of a statistical model. The monthly vector wind profiles are meant to be used (1) to estimate wind-dispersion-related dispersions of critical aerodynamic loads and corresponding aerospace-ascent-vehicle design parameters and (2) to analyze effects of monthly wind-profile dispersions on ascent trajectories and to design ascent autopilot systems to correct for these effects. The user's guide is also said to list output data to aid the user in the verification of test output.
This Aeronautical Standard covers Automatic Pilots intended for use on aircraft to automatically operate the aerodynamic controls to maintain flight and/or to provide maneuvering about the three axes through servo control.
This specification and a detail pump specification establish the requirements for variable flow hydraulic pumps, for use in aircraft hydraulic systems conforming to and as defined in MIL-H-5440 and MIL-H-8891, as applicable. The general requirements for type I and type II hydraulic systems pumps are specified in MIL-H-8775 and for type III system pumps in MIL-H-8890.
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