Use Case
Mr. Gman is a pilot in the Navy. His main mission as a helicopter pilot is to survey the environment of the battlezone. Every time he goes on a mission, he is worried about whether he will be able to come back to the ship safely because the helicopter landing environment can be very dangerous. Beside the threat from enemies, natural disturbances such as wind, lack of lighting, and rough seas can easily cause an accident.
The Navy utilizes many resources to reduce the risk of helicopter landing. Every possible effort has been made to solve the problem, including intense training for pilots and more stable vehicle platforms. The military has realized that the limitation of human capability is a key factor that causes accidents. Since environment surveying can be done by unmanned machines, one of the solutions is to apply the autonomous pilot system on the helicopter. After decades of cooperative research with the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, a sensor suite and trajectory planning software are mature enough to provide autonomous landing for helicopters.
With this new technology, Mr. Gman no longer needs to operate the helicopter during landing. Instead, he flies the helicopter to the vicinity of the ship and activates landing mode. During landing mode, the controls are taken over by the landing autopilot. In this mode, the helicopter can sense the location of the ship deck from a far distance via cameras and infrared beacons. Although the waves of the ocean heave the ship deck, the helicopter is able to predict the motion to determine the point in time when the deck will be in the safest landing position. The helicopter determines the speed and direction it must fly to meet the deck at that point in time. The helicopter meets the deck safely and smoothly, though the deck is still heaving from the ship riding the waves. The landing mode then deactivates, sending a signal to Mr. Gman that the autopilot has successfully landed the helicopter on the deck.
Figure: Typical use case for rotorcraft landing on the deck of a ship