Quote:
Originally Posted by wdfifteen
It will be a well-proven system before wide spread passenger use.
|
Aircraft certification is, as you know, a well worn exercise, especially transportation aircraft in the national airspace.
Most people get fixated on the "pilot-less" aspect. I do not.
The amount of redundancy in core mission avionics in UAS far exceeds any private plane flying today and I bet most transportation aircraft.
By "core" I mean GPS, six axis-gyros, auto-pilots, mission computers, etc. That stuff can be made quad redundant with little or no weight penalties.
The key will be in the the pitot-static (pressure sensitive) back-ups and in the power and propulsion, again, all part of the air vehicle certification.
Here is a screen shot from a flight test video last Friday. We are integrating a HAZMAT sensor in our Watchman Aircraft so the initial flights are indoors with a safety tether. We are doing what we call "fan tests" today and tomorrow before we go outside off tether.
Goofy I know, but we but large fans on the ground to simulate winds for take-off and landings. All part of the build up to certification with the FAA. Every minute of flight time is tracked as are power-on events with no take-off. We track everything.
This UAS is an 8 inch ducted fan. You can see the small electro-optic ball on the left in the picture. Amazing clarity.
