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Unmanned Operation of Fly-by-wire Testbed Aircraft
Navy SBIR 2009.1 - Topic N091-038 NAVAIR - Mrs. Janet McGovern - [email protected] Opens: December 8, 2008 - Closes: January 14, 2009 N091-038 TITLE: Unmanned Operation of Fly-by-wire Testbed Aircraft TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Ground/Sea Vehicles ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Joint Strike Fighter The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation. OBJECTIVE: Develop innovative methods to convert any manned fly-by-wire aircraft into an optionally-piloted platform for testing weapon systems and advanced sensors requiring high risk flights. DESCRIPTION: There is a need for a readily-available and flexible tactical-envelop testbed that can be flown, when needed for safety reasons, without a pilot in the cockpit. This capability will aid the development of riskier, yet high potential payoff, avionics and weapons systems before they mature into the spirals of military aircraft. Current commercially-available testbed aircraft are neither capable of trans- and super-sonic regimes, nor are they optionally-piloted. Military aircraft attached to test squadrons are often not available for R&D work, nor are they optionally-piloted. Current dedicated full-scale tactical targets are difficult to schedule for sporadic, yet repeated R&D tests, and they are limited by the regions of the country in which they fly. The capability will greatly facilitate getting new technologies tested and sent to the war fighter. Developing these technologies will advance the development of flight control interface technology, and associated ground control. This would enable the development of intelligent autonomous maneuver algorithms for strap-in supervisory autopilots. As the first generation of fly-by-wire aircraft such as the F-16, F/A-18, and F-117 retire, these aircraft become available as highly flexible test platforms to be used for weapon system and sensor testing. A need exists to convert them to optionally piloted manned or unmanned operation. Costs associated with this conversion are a key factor in the development. Methods to convert these aircraft must be conceived with development and modification costs as the primary driver. Modification or reprogramming of the existing flight control systems should not be required as this has the potential to significantly increase cost, due to re-certification. An F-16 aircraft will be made available, at no cost to the small company, for modification and test. Further explore certification issues (additional testing, redundancy, costs), based on the assumption that the candidate aircraft will be baseline-certified as FAA Experimental. Tight formation flying (such as aerial refueling) is not required; non-novel GPS-based navigation approaches will be sufficient. Only approaches that do not require modification of the flight control computer(s) will be evaluated. Total anticipated development and certification costs will be a major factor in evaluating concept feasibility. Specific flight phases of interest are terminal area operations (takeoff and landing), high altitude and supersonic maneuvering, developmental weapon and sensor carriage and control. PHASE I: Determine the feasibility of developing a system to convert a non-mechanical fly-by-wire aircraft into an optionally piloted vehicle, one flown from a ground control station with an experienced pilot with representative controls. Consider trade-off and requirements for the ground station, control fidelity/accuracy and pilot relief or autonomy aids. PHASE II: Design, develop, build and demonstrate a prototype system on an actual fly-by-wire F-16 aircraft. This hardware need not be flight worthy, but must exercise all the critical aspects of the system using a combination of simulation and breadboard hardware. PHASE III: Perform sufficient flight tests to completely validate the concept. Provide a transition path to interested platforms and the fleet: design package, operators'''' manual, path to certification in totally unmanned operation. PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: This technology could be used to convert hundreds of surplus fly-by-wire aircraft to UAS operation to monitor coastlines for the DEA or Homeland Security, or to convert to unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) for missions too dangerous for manned operation or one-way missions requiring extended range. REFERENCES: 2. http://pdf.aiaa.org/preview/CDReadyMIA07_1486/PV2007_2760.pdf. 3. http://www.uavcenter.com/english/wwuavs/north_america/eopv.asp. KEYWORDS: UAS; flight control; testbed; unmanned; autonomous; fly-by-wire aircraft
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