Aggressive Maneuvers

Operation of future autonomous vehicles in high-stress mission environments, such as air combat, suppression of enemy air defenses, and urban warfare, requires high maneuverability and adaptation to uncertain dynamics and environmental conditions. Traditional control algorithms impose performance limitations that fall far short of what can be achieved by skilled human pilots. The main objective of this project was to develop and demonstrate the ability for aggressive on-line maneuver trajectory generation. The goal was to demonstrate autonomous vehicle maneuvering capability well beyond the level typical in todays autonomous air vehicles. A second objective was to integrate the aggressive flight control technology into the SEC demonstration platform. The task was structured in two experiment demonstration phases where the first phase involved demonstrating our aggressive autonomous guidance capability on Drapers aggressive flight test vehicle. The second phase integrated and demonstrated these algorithms on the SEC rotary wing demonstrator platform - Georgia Institute of Technologys Yamaha RMAX helicopter.