Shipboard Landing Challenges for Autonomous Parafoils

This paper examines some of the challenges that must be overcome if future aerial delivery systems are to have the capability to land on the flight deck of a ship underway. The unique aspects of trajectory planning for landing on a ship’s flight deck are first examined, followed by formulation of the position estimation problem for a moving target. Some preliminary investigations into characterizing the wind over a moving landing platform at sea are then described. Finally, experimental results are presented for testing of a small prototype autonomous parafoil with a simple moving target on land.