BACKGROUND Eye tracking is an accurate and objective means of measuring an instrument scan pattern. The purpose of this study was to determine if prior aircraft experience, phase of flight, and autopilot mode modified the instrument scan pattern of F-117A pilots. METHODS There were 23 F-117A pilots, grouped by prior aircraft experience, who flew an instrument approach manually and with autopi...

The main goal here is to design a proper and efficient controller for a ship autopilot based on the sliding mode control method. A hydrodynamic numerical model of CyberShip II including wave effects is applied to simulate the ship autopilot system by using time domain analysis. To compare the results similar research was conducted with the PD controller, which was adapted to the autopilot syste...

The optimisation by Genetic Algorithm (GA) of a non-linear autopilot for ship course changing is studied in this paper. The theory of the optimisation technique is presented from its basis in Darwinian evolution to the development of the form of optimisation algorithm used in the application. This application involves a Sliding Mode (SM) controller for use as a course changing autopilot for a s...

With unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 36 licensed pilots flew both single-UAV and dual-UAV simulated military missions. Pilots were required to navigate each UAV through a series of mission legs in one of the following three conditions: a baseline condition, an auditory autoalert condition, and an autopilot condition. Pilots were responsible for (a) mission completion, (b) target search, and (c...

This paper presents the design of a dual controlled (manual as well as autopilot) Deployable Low Cost Outdoor Surveillance system. This model provides situational awareness by obtaining realtime information in outdoor applications. The aircraft is designed to have wingspan of less than 6 feet capable of carrying autopilot system and useful payload. This highly autonomous flight control system h...

Over recent years, a number of marine autopilots designed using linear techniques have underperformed owing to their inability to cope with nonlinear vessel dynamics. To this end, a new design framework for the development of nonlinear autopilots is proposed. Local Control Networks (LCNs) can be used in the design of nonlinear control systems. In this paper, a LCN approach is taken in the desig...

– A flight path rate demand modified three-loop lateral missile autopilot design methodology for a class of guided missile, based on state feedback, output feedback, reduced order Das & Ghosal observer (DGO) and Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), is proposed. The open loop undamped model of three-loop autopilot has been stabilized by using pole placement and state feedback. The non-minimum phase...

This paper describes the development of a fuzzy autopilot for controlling the non-linear yaw dynamics of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) model. The autopilot design is based on a new approach that uses a Gaussian fuzzy inference mechanism. For the design study, the AUV model is hosted in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. Simulation results are presented which illustrate the potential of t...

In this paper we present a centralised flightby-wire system based on μ-synthesis approach to the longitudinal flight motion of our experimental flying wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), P15035 aircraft. The challenge associated with our UAV is related to the fact that all motions of our UAV are controlled by two independently-actuated-ailerons, together with its throttle. The first reason for ...