nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
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 Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 10:14 am Post subject: Your Next Plane: Beer and Barcalounger method |
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At 11:55 AM 4/19/2011, you wrote:
I think I first observed an R/C quad-copter demo about
two years ago. The vehicle was locally stabilized (piezo
rate gyros and control loops not unlike your wing-leveler).
This allowed the pilot to concentrate on maneuvering inputs
without having to be also skilled in stability.
The obvious next step was to augment the pilot for
maneuvering control (which lets pilot move up to mission
management). The final step will be autonomous mission
management.
I had the privilege of working with HBC on a couple
of UAV projects . . . looking back, it was astounding
now what we did not yet know. But we did have the right
team. King radio for autopilot, Ball Aerospace for sensor
package, Collins for GPS (would you believe the smallest
and lightest P-mode GPS receiver was about 12 pounds and 75 cubic
inches?), Singer-Kearfott for flight management computer,
HBC for airframe, and Israel Aerospace Industries for
the ground station. We all had proven hardware that
was begging for a sensible integration. My job was to
figure out how to get all those independently developed
systems to talk to each other. We were proposing a sort
of 'telephone exchange' and interpreter that would accept
data from all systems, convert to new language as necessary
and send to all systems with interest in that data. I
had a 30 cubic inch, 1 pound budget for a very busy little
black box.
The program blew up when the prime contractor who shall
remain nameless insisted on injecting their own expertise
from a staff of PhD managers who had never designed or built
anything. They proposed a system that was more pie-in-the-sky
than a rational extension of our proven capabilities. We blew
about $10M on that program.
Looking at what these people do today has me wondering
how the story might have evolved differently if a Walter Beech,
Duane Wallace, Ed King or Bill Lear had been at the
helm. You gotta love the slabs of silicon and workstations
compilers . . . it just keeps getting better and better.
Bob . . .
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