REALISE Final Presentation

The final presentation of the REALISE project took place in November 2020. In a virtual meeting arranged at short notice due to Cornona-restrictions, a functional technology demonstrator of a runway-independent automatable take-off and landing system was presented to the project sponsor.

 

At the final presentation of the REALISE project in November 2020, a functional technology demonstrator for runway independent take-off and landing was presented to the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.

In the project "Runway indepEndent Automatic launch and LandIng SystEm" (REALISE),a system for optimized take-off and landing of unmanned fixed-wing aerial vehicle (UAV) was developed over a period of 3 years.

The developed concept aims at a runway independent design. In addition to a higher flexibility (The 146m long system can be completely assembled by two persons in approx. 2 hours.) a simplification up to a complete omission of a UAV landing gear. The reduction or the complete omission leads to a higher possible payload or an increased range due to a lower structural weight.

REALISE is technically implemented as a rail system with a sled that can be moved in longitudinal and transverse direction. When an UAV is launched, it is accelerated on the sled system until it takes off. A considerable amount of the necessary energy is provided by the REALISE system. Thus, with an appropriate scaling, the take-off distance can be significantly shortened and the noise emission of the UAV can be reduced. During landing, the sled of the REALISE system synchronizes fully automatically with the approaching UAV. Which then lands on the ground system with a negligible horizontal relative speed and is decelerated to a standstill. The landing platform can rotate around its vertical axis and so allows landings in strong crosswinds, as a decrab maneuver is not necessary.

With the demonstrator system set up in the project, the concept was successfully validated. In field tests, the ground system was synchronized with various approaching UAVs. For this purpose, the UAV was previously launched directly from the REALISE system. Finally, the functionality was confirmed by a successful landing. In addition to the technical components, comprehensive market analyses were also carried out in order to evaluate the potential of the technology in an overall picture.

The Institute of Flight System Dynamics was significantly involved in the development and integration of the sensor technology to capture the relative pose between UAV and ground system, the further processing of the sensor data, the elaboration of a user interface and the formulation of an automation concept.