In this research, an automatic control system is designed for landing of a small helicopter on a 4 DOF moving platform. The platform has three translational and one directional degree of freedom. The controller design approach is based on development of helicopter nonlinear dynamic model into the SDC (State Dependent Coefficient) form and real time solving of state dependent Riccati equation (S...

Helicopter landing sites in proximity to the forest fire-risk zones are necessary for the delivery of supplies and fire emergency response teams. In this paper, we initially prepared forest fire risk map using Random Forest algorithm by overlaying the effective factors on fire occurring including vegetation types, physiographic, climatic and human factors. Then, three variants of natural candid...

This paper presents a simple and efficient solution to vision guided autonomous landing of a light-weight (<150 Kg) unmanned helicopter on a smart landing platform, called ISLANDS—Intelligent Self-Leveling and Nodal Docking System. The advantage of ISLANDS is that it may allow the helicopter upon docking to recharge its batteries or refuel, thus, indirectly increasing endurance and flight range...

We present the design and implementation of a realtime, vision-based landing algorithm for an autonomous helicopter. The helicopter is required to navigate from an initial position to a final position in a partially known environment based on GPS and vision, locate a landing target (a helipad of a known shape) and land on it. We use vision for precise target detection and recognition. The helic...

We present the design and implementation of a real-time, vision-based landing algorithm for an autonomous helicopter. The landing algorithm is integrated with algorithms for visual acquisition of the target (a helipad), and navigation to the target, from an arbitrary initial position and orientation. We use vision for precise target detection and recognition, and a combination of vision and GPS...

This paper presents the design and implementation of an algorithm for landing a helicopter autonomously on a moving target. The target is neutral; it is neither adversarial nor cooperative. A downward-looking camera is used to acquire and track the target. A template matching algorithm is used for acquiring the target in the images. This is integrated with a trajectory controller for landing th...

Current trends in the design of helicopter have shown that in order to be economically viable and competitive it is necessary to investigate new design concept which may give an improvement in performance and operational flexibility goal and expanding the flight envelope of rotorcraft, but must be shown to be costeffective. The helicopter has carved a niche for itself as an efficient vertical t...

Autonomous landing is a challenging but important task for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) to achieve high level of autonomy. The fundamental requirement for landing is the knowledge of the height above the ground, and a properly designed controller to govern the process. This paper presents our research results in the study of landing an autonomous helicopter. The above‐the‐ground hei...

Relative navigation of an aircraft (fixed wing or helicopter) close to ships at sea is a unique navigation problem. Shipboard helicopter operations provide a difficult operational environment. Wind over deck and wake turbulence shed by ship super structure offer challenging and unpredictable conditions during takeoff and landing. This is especially true in the operational environment that inclu...