Re: [Aus-soaring] Autonomous soaring

[Mike Borgelt]

At 08:45 PM 2/10/2016, you wrote:

First 100km task flown autonomously (and all below 4000ft)

A commercial off-the-shelf RnR Products SBXC sailplane was outfitted 
as a UAV and performed more than 100 test flights of the ALOFT 
algorithm, with a nominal endurance of 3 min after a winchlaunch to 
approximately 100 m altitude. A notable success was unofficially 
breaking the cross-country soaring goal-and-return world record by 
flying 97.2 km (60.4 mi) declared distance over approximately 4.55 
hr. Best endurance demonstrated by the algorithm was 5.3 hr and best 
range demonstrated by the algorithm was 113.4 km (70.47 mi) open 
distance. There was no motor on the ALOFT sailplane for any of these 
flights, so all the endurance and range performance clearly came 
from flying in thermals


http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=ADA614555


___
Aus-soaring mailing list
Aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au
http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring




I plotted the polar for the model glider using the polar coefficients given.
Min sink is about 0.5 knots at 10 KIAS, best L/D is about 20 at 13 
knots or so and 4 knots of sink at 25 KIAS.


Makes the speed look a fair bit better.

They ought to put the autopilot in a two seat sailplane and have the 
human pilot follow the autopilot commands. Preferably with another 
glider of the same type flying the same course.


Things to note: They use netto in the cruise to find the best air. 
They seem to do a g compensated netto for climb too. This isn't quite 
what you want as when climbing you want to climb fastest. This isn't 
necessarily the same as being in the best air as the sink speed of 
the glider  through the air varies with G load(bank angle) although 
the way their algorithm works it is effective. A human pilot will 
only use the bank angle required to maximise climb rate. You all do 
that don't you?


Mike

___
Aus-soaring mailing list
Aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au
http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring

Re: [Aus-soaring] Autonomous soaring

[DMcD]

Interesting yes, alarming maybe.

I had always hoped that gliding had no useful purpose and that it was
something like surfing. that one did just for the sake of it. Not
something that you could use for killing people.

To find that the Tactical Electronic Warfare Division of the US Navy
has come close to solving problems which the rest of us do for fun is
a little disorientating.

I can see a point in time where the air is filled so with drones of
all sorts that recreational "pilots" sit at home wearing VR glass
goggles and claim to be flying.

D
___
Aus-soaring mailing list
Aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au
http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring