January 28, 2011, 1100 Webb

This talk will discuss the problem of autonomously recovering small and miniature air vehicles (MAV). There are numerous scenarios where manually retrieving a MAV may be problematic, necessitating autonomous recovery. The solution concept that we will discuss includes a mothership towing a drogue at the end of a flexible cable. The airspeed of the mothership may be many times faster than the airspeed of the MAV. To accommodate the mismatch in airspeed, the mothership enters an orbit and the drag coefficient of the drogue is controlled to insert the drogue into a smaller orbit thereby significantly reducing the airspeed of the drogue. The MAV must then accomplish an air-to-air rendezvous with the drogue. Simulation and preliminary flight results will be presented.

Randal W. Beard received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, in 1991, the M.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1993, the M.S. degree in mathematics in 1994, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1995, all from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. Since 1996, he has been with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, where he is currently a professor. In 1997 and 1998, he was a Summer Faculty Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. In 2006-2007 he was a National Council Research Fellow at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate, Eglin AFB, FL. His research interests include guidance and control, autonomous systems, and multiple vehicle coordination and control with particular emphasis on small and miniature air vehicles.