UAVs: Computer co-pilots - 'Smarter' UAVs could help avoid human error during landings

摘要

The answers are said to be coming for all those U.S. Air Force UAV crashes: stouter, smarter airplanes that would be controlled by computers during takeoff and, most importantly, landings, when the craft are hardest to control. In the meantime, the Air Force is about to field a laser altimeter that could make its Predators and Reapers easier to fly until that automated takeoff-and-landing system is ready for the Reapers in 2012. The Reapers are scheduled to take over completely for the Predators in 2016. For now, personnel inside launch and recovery stations overseas continue to guide the Predators and Reapers in with joysticks at the end of each mission. These operators are given control of the aircraft after pilots and sensor operators at bases in the U.S. are done taking videos or striking targets with Hellfire missiles. Local teams must land the planes because the signal delay from the U.S. would make them all but impossible to control.