Helicopter is said to be the hardest type of vehicle to pilot. It requires pilot to concentrate on three dimensional spaces, which is more than what an airplane demands. In terms of motion, the potentials of a helicopter exceed airplanes any other vehicle known to man today. For instant, we can easily define that there are 3 things that a helicopter can do and an airplane cannot. First, a helicopter can fly backwards. Second, a helicopter can rotate in the air without moving its position. Third, a helicopter can hover motionless in the air.
However, with these benefits in terms of motion, there are additional complications in handling it. Once it is in the air, the pilot must fight the helicopters urges to fly in any direction. Maintaining stability and control is a critical issue in piloting a helicopter. If we usually take a 10 training hours to learn how to drive a car, it takes approximately 65 hours before we can get our license in piloting Helicopters. The average cost of a private helicopter courses is 12,500.-, many times more expensive than the cost of a private car-driving course.
These complications in handling the aircraft is the critical point that makes designing remote control for the vehicle much more difficult than other vehicles and a much more expensive technology as well. So far, the technology is only affordable for the military and the movie industry.
Todays, however, there are various efforts in increasing the availability of UAV helicopters for various purposes from traffic surveillance, agriculture, to volcanic activities researches. In order to make the unmanned helicopters available for a wider sense of purposes, the technology must be made cheaper and more reliable at the same time. Concerning the development of un-manned helicopter, this paper will elaborate the annotated bibliography to summarize the efforts on achieving that goals.
In this journal, Jongkwon Kim and partners are elaborating on the success of developing a control system for supporting an unmanned helicopter. However, the application are limited to unmanned vehicle that have several abilities only, like taking off, hovering steadily and low speed flight at a low altitude. The problem with generating reliable control over an unmanned helicopter is the fact that small aerial vehicle are very sensitive toward changes of the environmental conditions. Therefore, generating a reliable control is generally considered as a difficult issue. A specially designed flight control system for helicopters would help overcoming that issue.
In this research, it is revealed that system design, controller design, configurations design and interference design were tested for the designed of unmanned helicopter. Furthermore, an altitude controller was simulated and a multivariable controller was deigned, tested and verified with computer simulation. It is concluded that adaptive Fuzzy controller is reasonable controller for altitude control. Following steps for generating a reliable control for unmanned helicopters are testing a well designed procedure, Ground Control and Monitoring System and linearized wide-areas, adequate for control law design. It is also required that a Real Time Operating System is implemented to autopilot computer for graphical interface.
Koeda, Masanao, Matsumoto, Yoshio, Ogasawara. Development of Annotation-Based Assistance System for Unmanned Helicopter with Wearable Augmented Reality Environment
In this research journal, it is revealed that unmanned helicopters can be better controlled remotely by the use of annotation-based assistance system for unmanned helicopter. With this technology, an operator can control the helicopter remotely while watching an annotated view from a helicopter, by means of a head-mounted display (HMD), connected to a laptop in a backpack. The position and the altitude of the helicopter is managed by a GPS and a gyroscope and then sent to the operators HMD via a wireless LAN.
This will help operators to overcome the stability problem that arise when the coordination between the operator and the helicopter changes drastically depending on the attitude of the helicopter. With the help of annotated-based assistance system for unmanned helicopter, the position and attitude are measured correctly and virtual objects are overlaid on actual buildings synchronized with condition of the helicopter and operator.
V. Gavrilets, A. Shterenberg, M. A. Dahleh, E. Fero. Avionics System for a Small Unmanned Helicopter Performing Aggressive Maneuvers. M.I.T, Cambridge, MA.
In the rising interest of using small unmanned helicopters for various necessities, researches are performed in many aspect of the technology. In this particular journal, the researchers are focused on increasing the maneuverability or the unmanned vehicle. First of all, it is mentioned that unmanned helicopters actually posses outstanding maneuverability because they are not constrained by human presence on-board.
Therefore, the researchers argued that this subject should get more attention. In this research, it is revealed that the Xcell-60 5ft rotor diameter hobby helicopter was instrumented to perform autonomous aggressive maneuvers. The research provide detailed results regarding the test of avionics system, state estimator design and vibration isolation.
U. Coppaa, A. Guarnierib, F. Pirottib, A. Vettore. (2009). Accuracy Enhancement of Unmanned Helicopter Positioning with Low Cost System. Applied Geomatics, Volume 1, Number 3
In line with the increasing use of unmanned helicopters for various uses, there are also researches aimed at producing a cheaper way of providing unmanned helicopters. The problem with remote controlled helicopters is that is has limited control visibility and thus posses higher risks of accidents or impacts.
In this particular research, it is argued that the helicopter UAV will be much more useful if we are able to design an autonomous guidance system which could both stabilize and guide the helicopter precisely along a referenced path. Furthermore, the research revealed that such systems are being developed constantly by various organizations, generating massive cost reductions and payload miniaturization.
The paper presented the results of a control system developed in Metlab Simulink, which simulate the behavior of an autonomous guidance system to be applied to helicopters. The small sized UAV in this research however, is focused on mapping purposes.
Mettler, Bernard. Tischler, Mark B., and Kanade, Takeo. (1999). System Identification of Small-Size Unmanned Helicopter Dynamics. American Helicopter Society
This article mainly describes the application of CIFER system identification techniques, which have been developed for full-size helicopters, to small size helicopters. The article gives a clear explanation of why designing a flight control system for unmanned helicopters is difficult. It mentioned that designing the flight control system for unmanned helicopters is different compare to fixed-wing UAV. In Helicopters UAV, the bare airframe exhibits a high degree of inter-axis coupling, which is highly unstable and non-minimum phase dynamic characteristics, high rate of response variations according to flight conditions and large delays associated with rotor.
However, the design process of a proper flight control system is worthwhile because the broad performance potential of the helicopter is directly relate to the complex character of its flight dynamics. It is the complexity of the helicopter flight dynamics which makes it modeling difficult. It is also discussed that the in order to achieve good control performance, bandwidth requirements must be fulfilled. However, system identification has been very successful in full-size helicopters. This paper presents detailed example of application of a full-size helicopters identification methods to small size helicopters.
The article concludes that system identification techniques used in full-size helicopters can be successfully applied to small size helicopters. Advanced instrument system like IMU, GPS and Kalman filter is required. CIFER system identification was effectively used to derive an accurate high-bandwidth model for hovering helicopters.
Mettler, Bernard., Kanade, Takeo., Tischler, Mark B., and Messner, William. (2000). Attitude Control Optimization for a Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopter. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Another journal tresses the importance of having an attitude control optimization for unmanned helicopters. As mentioned in the previously reviewed journal, attitude control is a difficult issue for small scale unmanned helicopter. This journal discusses the results of using vehicle dynamics models that explicitly accounts for the coupled rotorstabilizerfuselage dynamics. The model could accurately predict the performance of the control system currently used for autonomous helicopter by Carnegie Melon.
Previous analysis revealed that the light damping in the coupled rsf limits the performance of the baseline control system. This limitation however, is now compensated by a second order notch filter. The control system is subsequently optimized using the CONDUIT control design framework and a frequency response envelope specification, which allows attitude control performance to be accurately specified. The experiment, which has been performed on Carnegie Mellons r-50 autonomous helicopter, revealed that the model can successfully predict the performance of currently used control system. Moreover, the optimized PD controller shows a significant increase in performance and decrease in the attitude oscillation.
Adachi, Shuichi., Hashimoto, Seiji., Miyamori, Gou, and Tan, Anzhong. Autonomous Flight Control for a Large Scale Unmanned Helicopter. Transactions of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. D, Vol. 121, No. 12, pp 1278-1283
This article by Shuichi Adachi and partners has revealed that large-scale unmanned helicopters can be controlled successfully with the right system identification and control system design. First, the article identifies that large scale unmanned helicopters are more frequently used in the field and many other areas, for instant, as agricultural spraying tool, as observation aid, fire fighting instrument and even for rescue missions. For dangerous missions, the use of autonomous flight control of the helicopter is indispensable. It requires integrating technologies like trouble diagnosis and obstacle avoidance, not to mention attitude and position controls. The article also acknowledges that flight control of unmanned helicopters is difficult due to the instability, nonlinearity and cross coupling. The goal of this research is to design an autonomous flight control system for large-scale unmanned helicopters. First, the author investigated system identification experiments of the full-scale unmanned helicopter. Second, system identification results are shown on the dynamics using input and output data. Several models were used to describe and verify the dynamics of the helicopter. Finally, the author illustrates the constructer position control systems based on a control theory, by the using identified model.
Soule, Alexander. (2010). Sikorsky eyes unmanned helicopters. Fairfield County Business Journal
In helicopter industry, the name Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. is undoubtedly famous as the company is one leader in the industry with various kinds of their helicopters already exist worldwide. In this journal, the author reveals that Sikorsky confirms their plan to develop the un-manned helicopter or in their words it refers to helicopter that controlled remotely without a pilot. In order to pass the development, the company confirms that they would spend over 1 billion within the next decade.
The underlying reason of such unmanned helicopter development is backed up by the fact that the benefits of such vehicle are unquestionable with many opportunities for implementation in wide areas from agricultural enhancement to military purposes.
The 1 billion project represents the Sikorskys second major research project. The latest progress reveals that Sikorsky already carries out a testing on their prototype helicopter with a mounted rear turbine like a propeller on the airplane. This design allows the vehicle to run faster than conventional helicopters. In the end of the article, it is also revealed that Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin, which are Sikorskys close competitors, are also in the progress of developing unmanned cargo helicopters in which they cooperate with Bloomfield-based Kaman Corp.
From the pilots point of view, piloting a helicopter is a challenge as the vehicle has tendency to rush in any direction, particularly when hovering. This condition also applies for a remote-controlled helicopter where it requires an experienced ground operator and also expensive equipment to make it happen. As the result, the use of unmanned helicopter firstly implemented for military purposes and also in the movie industry.
Fortunately, as the technology matures and costs of unmanned helicopters reduce, it is now common to have the unmanned helicopter application in many industries. One contributing factor to the development is the patented mathematical formulas that enable a helicopter to hover steadily in the long period. This advancement enables the unmanned helicopter to perform difficult task such as taking a video.
This technology that developed by Gadi Kalisch, an electrical engineer that has great enthusiasm over the remote controlled aircraft now receive many inquiries from a number of companiesindustries for customizing the unmanned helicopter that suit their needs, respectively.
The system, which is developed by Gadi Kalisch employs a computer, standard accelerometers, gyroscopes that is critical for the unmanned helicopter to keep the correct orientation, an altimeter to verify altitude, a compass, and conventional GPS (Global Positioning System) equipment. The first commercial unmanned helicopter from the company he works for is available for 125,000 with the size about 7.5-feet-long and some 30 pounds.
Another aeronautics manufacturer that also takes a part in the development of unmanned vehicle is Saab. The company has just completed the test flights is a new version of unmanned helicopter, which uses new components in order to reach the Saabs high quality requirements.Among strategic projects in relation to the development of unmanned vehicle are projects at European Defence Agency (EDA) and Eurocontrol. At the EDA project, Saab is a member of a consortium that wins a tender to develop UAV Insertion into General Air Traffic. The consortium itself composes of major aviation companies in the Europe with the goals to make unmanned vehicle is safely flying by 2015 as the deadline.
Prior to the joint in the consortium, Saab has worked with Swedish National Civil Aviation Authority to perform several flight simulations that assess the collaboration between air traffic control and UAVs.
Air-Attack. (2010). Team K-MAX Demonstrates Successful Unmanned Helicopter Cargo Resupply.
The recent development of unmanned helicopter has achieved new level as a leading aviation company, Lockheed Martin Corporation along with Kaman Aerospace Corporation, a subsidiary of Kaman Corporation confirmed that their developed unmanned helicopter runs successfully. The so-called K-MAX helicopter is demonstrated in front to U.S. Marine Corps, which intends to use the helicopter for military operation at forward operating bases in Afghanistan.
Some performance metric during the demonstration include the hovering at 12,000 feet in which the helicopter carries out the 1,500-pound sling load and 3,000 pounds of cargo. In addition, the demonstration also runs about six hours that represent the real case in the forward operating base.
In addition, as optional development, the demonstration also exhibits the capability of K-MAX to deliver the multi-load in the single flight by using the four-hook carousel. This option will enable the additional delivery of cargo about 3,450 pounds.
The success demonstration helps the U.S Marine Corps program to use the vehicle in order to deliver important cargo to troops on the battlefield without the need of manned helicopters and ground vehicles.
Unmanned helicopters are gaining lots of attention due to its abundant usage potentials. Its wide possibility of maneuvers allows it to perform many functions that other UAV might not be able to perform. This huge potential however, comes with great mechanical complexity as well.
The journals elaborated above revealed what it takes to develop an unmanned helicopter. The technology might sound simple, because it has been applied in fixed-wing UAV, but in reality, the instability of helicopter flight is much higher therefore, need much more effort to create a successful helicopter UAV. Components required to develop a successful helicopter UAV flight have been researched separately and most of them generated the conclusion that such an idea is not only possible, but can be enhanced further.
Due to the large amount of attention given for the development of this technology, it grew rapidly along the years. Today, the technology becomes more reliable and cheaper. Future research potentials however, are still abundant, as mentioned in the journals.
However, with these benefits in terms of motion, there are additional complications in handling it. Once it is in the air, the pilot must fight the helicopters urges to fly in any direction. Maintaining stability and control is a critical issue in piloting a helicopter. If we usually take a 10 training hours to learn how to drive a car, it takes approximately 65 hours before we can get our license in piloting Helicopters. The average cost of a private helicopter courses is 12,500.-, many times more expensive than the cost of a private car-driving course.
These complications in handling the aircraft is the critical point that makes designing remote control for the vehicle much more difficult than other vehicles and a much more expensive technology as well. So far, the technology is only affordable for the military and the movie industry.
Todays, however, there are various efforts in increasing the availability of UAV helicopters for various purposes from traffic surveillance, agriculture, to volcanic activities researches. In order to make the unmanned helicopters available for a wider sense of purposes, the technology must be made cheaper and more reliable at the same time. Concerning the development of un-manned helicopter, this paper will elaborate the annotated bibliography to summarize the efforts on achieving that goals.
In this journal, Jongkwon Kim and partners are elaborating on the success of developing a control system for supporting an unmanned helicopter. However, the application are limited to unmanned vehicle that have several abilities only, like taking off, hovering steadily and low speed flight at a low altitude. The problem with generating reliable control over an unmanned helicopter is the fact that small aerial vehicle are very sensitive toward changes of the environmental conditions. Therefore, generating a reliable control is generally considered as a difficult issue. A specially designed flight control system for helicopters would help overcoming that issue.
In this research, it is revealed that system design, controller design, configurations design and interference design were tested for the designed of unmanned helicopter. Furthermore, an altitude controller was simulated and a multivariable controller was deigned, tested and verified with computer simulation. It is concluded that adaptive Fuzzy controller is reasonable controller for altitude control. Following steps for generating a reliable control for unmanned helicopters are testing a well designed procedure, Ground Control and Monitoring System and linearized wide-areas, adequate for control law design. It is also required that a Real Time Operating System is implemented to autopilot computer for graphical interface.
Koeda, Masanao, Matsumoto, Yoshio, Ogasawara. Development of Annotation-Based Assistance System for Unmanned Helicopter with Wearable Augmented Reality Environment
In this research journal, it is revealed that unmanned helicopters can be better controlled remotely by the use of annotation-based assistance system for unmanned helicopter. With this technology, an operator can control the helicopter remotely while watching an annotated view from a helicopter, by means of a head-mounted display (HMD), connected to a laptop in a backpack. The position and the altitude of the helicopter is managed by a GPS and a gyroscope and then sent to the operators HMD via a wireless LAN.
This will help operators to overcome the stability problem that arise when the coordination between the operator and the helicopter changes drastically depending on the attitude of the helicopter. With the help of annotated-based assistance system for unmanned helicopter, the position and attitude are measured correctly and virtual objects are overlaid on actual buildings synchronized with condition of the helicopter and operator.
V. Gavrilets, A. Shterenberg, M. A. Dahleh, E. Fero. Avionics System for a Small Unmanned Helicopter Performing Aggressive Maneuvers. M.I.T, Cambridge, MA.
In the rising interest of using small unmanned helicopters for various necessities, researches are performed in many aspect of the technology. In this particular journal, the researchers are focused on increasing the maneuverability or the unmanned vehicle. First of all, it is mentioned that unmanned helicopters actually posses outstanding maneuverability because they are not constrained by human presence on-board.
Therefore, the researchers argued that this subject should get more attention. In this research, it is revealed that the Xcell-60 5ft rotor diameter hobby helicopter was instrumented to perform autonomous aggressive maneuvers. The research provide detailed results regarding the test of avionics system, state estimator design and vibration isolation.
U. Coppaa, A. Guarnierib, F. Pirottib, A. Vettore. (2009). Accuracy Enhancement of Unmanned Helicopter Positioning with Low Cost System. Applied Geomatics, Volume 1, Number 3
In line with the increasing use of unmanned helicopters for various uses, there are also researches aimed at producing a cheaper way of providing unmanned helicopters. The problem with remote controlled helicopters is that is has limited control visibility and thus posses higher risks of accidents or impacts.
In this particular research, it is argued that the helicopter UAV will be much more useful if we are able to design an autonomous guidance system which could both stabilize and guide the helicopter precisely along a referenced path. Furthermore, the research revealed that such systems are being developed constantly by various organizations, generating massive cost reductions and payload miniaturization.
The paper presented the results of a control system developed in Metlab Simulink, which simulate the behavior of an autonomous guidance system to be applied to helicopters. The small sized UAV in this research however, is focused on mapping purposes.
Mettler, Bernard. Tischler, Mark B., and Kanade, Takeo. (1999). System Identification of Small-Size Unmanned Helicopter Dynamics. American Helicopter Society
This article mainly describes the application of CIFER system identification techniques, which have been developed for full-size helicopters, to small size helicopters. The article gives a clear explanation of why designing a flight control system for unmanned helicopters is difficult. It mentioned that designing the flight control system for unmanned helicopters is different compare to fixed-wing UAV. In Helicopters UAV, the bare airframe exhibits a high degree of inter-axis coupling, which is highly unstable and non-minimum phase dynamic characteristics, high rate of response variations according to flight conditions and large delays associated with rotor.
However, the design process of a proper flight control system is worthwhile because the broad performance potential of the helicopter is directly relate to the complex character of its flight dynamics. It is the complexity of the helicopter flight dynamics which makes it modeling difficult. It is also discussed that the in order to achieve good control performance, bandwidth requirements must be fulfilled. However, system identification has been very successful in full-size helicopters. This paper presents detailed example of application of a full-size helicopters identification methods to small size helicopters.
The article concludes that system identification techniques used in full-size helicopters can be successfully applied to small size helicopters. Advanced instrument system like IMU, GPS and Kalman filter is required. CIFER system identification was effectively used to derive an accurate high-bandwidth model for hovering helicopters.
Mettler, Bernard., Kanade, Takeo., Tischler, Mark B., and Messner, William. (2000). Attitude Control Optimization for a Small-Scale Unmanned Helicopter. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Another journal tresses the importance of having an attitude control optimization for unmanned helicopters. As mentioned in the previously reviewed journal, attitude control is a difficult issue for small scale unmanned helicopter. This journal discusses the results of using vehicle dynamics models that explicitly accounts for the coupled rotorstabilizerfuselage dynamics. The model could accurately predict the performance of the control system currently used for autonomous helicopter by Carnegie Melon.
Previous analysis revealed that the light damping in the coupled rsf limits the performance of the baseline control system. This limitation however, is now compensated by a second order notch filter. The control system is subsequently optimized using the CONDUIT control design framework and a frequency response envelope specification, which allows attitude control performance to be accurately specified. The experiment, which has been performed on Carnegie Mellons r-50 autonomous helicopter, revealed that the model can successfully predict the performance of currently used control system. Moreover, the optimized PD controller shows a significant increase in performance and decrease in the attitude oscillation.
Adachi, Shuichi., Hashimoto, Seiji., Miyamori, Gou, and Tan, Anzhong. Autonomous Flight Control for a Large Scale Unmanned Helicopter. Transactions of the Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. D, Vol. 121, No. 12, pp 1278-1283
This article by Shuichi Adachi and partners has revealed that large-scale unmanned helicopters can be controlled successfully with the right system identification and control system design. First, the article identifies that large scale unmanned helicopters are more frequently used in the field and many other areas, for instant, as agricultural spraying tool, as observation aid, fire fighting instrument and even for rescue missions. For dangerous missions, the use of autonomous flight control of the helicopter is indispensable. It requires integrating technologies like trouble diagnosis and obstacle avoidance, not to mention attitude and position controls. The article also acknowledges that flight control of unmanned helicopters is difficult due to the instability, nonlinearity and cross coupling. The goal of this research is to design an autonomous flight control system for large-scale unmanned helicopters. First, the author investigated system identification experiments of the full-scale unmanned helicopter. Second, system identification results are shown on the dynamics using input and output data. Several models were used to describe and verify the dynamics of the helicopter. Finally, the author illustrates the constructer position control systems based on a control theory, by the using identified model.
Soule, Alexander. (2010). Sikorsky eyes unmanned helicopters. Fairfield County Business Journal
In helicopter industry, the name Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. is undoubtedly famous as the company is one leader in the industry with various kinds of their helicopters already exist worldwide. In this journal, the author reveals that Sikorsky confirms their plan to develop the un-manned helicopter or in their words it refers to helicopter that controlled remotely without a pilot. In order to pass the development, the company confirms that they would spend over 1 billion within the next decade.
The underlying reason of such unmanned helicopter development is backed up by the fact that the benefits of such vehicle are unquestionable with many opportunities for implementation in wide areas from agricultural enhancement to military purposes.
The 1 billion project represents the Sikorskys second major research project. The latest progress reveals that Sikorsky already carries out a testing on their prototype helicopter with a mounted rear turbine like a propeller on the airplane. This design allows the vehicle to run faster than conventional helicopters. In the end of the article, it is also revealed that Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin, which are Sikorskys close competitors, are also in the progress of developing unmanned cargo helicopters in which they cooperate with Bloomfield-based Kaman Corp.
From the pilots point of view, piloting a helicopter is a challenge as the vehicle has tendency to rush in any direction, particularly when hovering. This condition also applies for a remote-controlled helicopter where it requires an experienced ground operator and also expensive equipment to make it happen. As the result, the use of unmanned helicopter firstly implemented for military purposes and also in the movie industry.
Fortunately, as the technology matures and costs of unmanned helicopters reduce, it is now common to have the unmanned helicopter application in many industries. One contributing factor to the development is the patented mathematical formulas that enable a helicopter to hover steadily in the long period. This advancement enables the unmanned helicopter to perform difficult task such as taking a video.
This technology that developed by Gadi Kalisch, an electrical engineer that has great enthusiasm over the remote controlled aircraft now receive many inquiries from a number of companiesindustries for customizing the unmanned helicopter that suit their needs, respectively.
The system, which is developed by Gadi Kalisch employs a computer, standard accelerometers, gyroscopes that is critical for the unmanned helicopter to keep the correct orientation, an altimeter to verify altitude, a compass, and conventional GPS (Global Positioning System) equipment. The first commercial unmanned helicopter from the company he works for is available for 125,000 with the size about 7.5-feet-long and some 30 pounds.
Another aeronautics manufacturer that also takes a part in the development of unmanned vehicle is Saab. The company has just completed the test flights is a new version of unmanned helicopter, which uses new components in order to reach the Saabs high quality requirements.Among strategic projects in relation to the development of unmanned vehicle are projects at European Defence Agency (EDA) and Eurocontrol. At the EDA project, Saab is a member of a consortium that wins a tender to develop UAV Insertion into General Air Traffic. The consortium itself composes of major aviation companies in the Europe with the goals to make unmanned vehicle is safely flying by 2015 as the deadline.
Prior to the joint in the consortium, Saab has worked with Swedish National Civil Aviation Authority to perform several flight simulations that assess the collaboration between air traffic control and UAVs.
Air-Attack. (2010). Team K-MAX Demonstrates Successful Unmanned Helicopter Cargo Resupply.
The recent development of unmanned helicopter has achieved new level as a leading aviation company, Lockheed Martin Corporation along with Kaman Aerospace Corporation, a subsidiary of Kaman Corporation confirmed that their developed unmanned helicopter runs successfully. The so-called K-MAX helicopter is demonstrated in front to U.S. Marine Corps, which intends to use the helicopter for military operation at forward operating bases in Afghanistan.
Some performance metric during the demonstration include the hovering at 12,000 feet in which the helicopter carries out the 1,500-pound sling load and 3,000 pounds of cargo. In addition, the demonstration also runs about six hours that represent the real case in the forward operating base.
In addition, as optional development, the demonstration also exhibits the capability of K-MAX to deliver the multi-load in the single flight by using the four-hook carousel. This option will enable the additional delivery of cargo about 3,450 pounds.
The success demonstration helps the U.S Marine Corps program to use the vehicle in order to deliver important cargo to troops on the battlefield without the need of manned helicopters and ground vehicles.
Unmanned helicopters are gaining lots of attention due to its abundant usage potentials. Its wide possibility of maneuvers allows it to perform many functions that other UAV might not be able to perform. This huge potential however, comes with great mechanical complexity as well.
The journals elaborated above revealed what it takes to develop an unmanned helicopter. The technology might sound simple, because it has been applied in fixed-wing UAV, but in reality, the instability of helicopter flight is much higher therefore, need much more effort to create a successful helicopter UAV. Components required to develop a successful helicopter UAV flight have been researched separately and most of them generated the conclusion that such an idea is not only possible, but can be enhanced further.
Due to the large amount of attention given for the development of this technology, it grew rapidly along the years. Today, the technology becomes more reliable and cheaper. Future research potentials however, are still abundant, as mentioned in the journals.
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