Matthew Nelson
The Air Force Research Laboratory and DZYNE Technologies demonstrated the capacity of a robotic pilot unmanned conversion program during a test flight at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
During the two-hour test, the team used the ROBOpilot program along with a Cessna 206 aircraft to conduct autonomous takeoffs, landing and mission navigation, the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base said Thursday.
Built under the Direct to Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract vehicle, ROBOpilot works to control and communicate with an aircraft via an inertial measurement unit, actuators, cameras, GPS tools, sensor systems and a robotic arm.
Alok Das, a senior scientist at AFRL’s Center for Rapid Innovation, said the platform utilized various commercial offerings and subsystems from past DZYNE and AFRL aircraft conversion projects.
