Abstract
This paper presents a mission control concept for flight operations of a fully automated aerial parcel delivery system. The parcel delivery operation requires long distance flight as well as landing on small platforms also in challenging weather conditions. A tiltwing aircraft was selected for this purpose, because it best combines vertical take-off and landing capabilities with efficient and low noise cruise flight. Key challenges to be solved for this task were the fully automated control of the tiltwing aircraft during transition between hover and cruise flight. Safety procedures, e.g. during transition and during cruise flight, required that the mission control system was well harmonized with the basic flight control system. In this contribution focus is set on the mission control system, which is augmenting the flight control system by doing the overall phase of flight management. This includes operational and safety procedure handling, as required for an automated beyond visual line of sight operation. In cooperation with ‘DHL Parcel’ the tiltwing aircraft system was deployed within a three-month Parcelcopter delivery trial operation in the Bavarian Alps, working as intended and demonstrating the robustness and reliability of the mission control system.
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References
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Schütt, M., Hartmann, P., Holsten, J., Moormann, D. (2018). Mission Control Concept for Parcel Delivery Operations Based on a Tiltwing Aircraft System. In: Dołęga, B., Głębocki, R., Kordos, D., Żugaj, M. (eds) Advances in Aerospace Guidance, Navigation and Control. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65283-2_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65283-2_26
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