pic: Autonomous Aircraft

[Tytus Gerrish]

awesome. how about some specs. powerplant? ceeling? VNE?

[wilsonmw04]

I always loved checking out the VT tables at the VA State Fair every year during the breaks at Robot Rumble. Sadly, the Rumble will not be at the Fair anymore.

[Justin Stiltner]

More specs are here
http://www.me.vt.edu/unmanned/aircraft.html
but basically 94Kg max takeoff weight
Power plant is a twin cylinder Yamaha 2 stroke
ceiling is as high as we tell it to go (we are legally limited on height, basically we want to be able to see it for safety reasons)

The company only lists the speed as about 24km/hr likely limited by the autopilot used.

It is a Yamaha RMAX type G, initially meant for crop dusting, they outfitted them with gps and autopilots for research use.

Basics are here
http://www.barnardmicrosystems.com/L4E_rmax.htm#Item_2

[Tristan Lall]

Looks like Virginia Tech liked Georgia Tech's RMAX so much they got one for themselves. Georgia Tech operated one of those at the 2008 International Aerial Robotics Competition (and actually, previous IARCs as well). (VA Tech operated some perfectly credible, but much smaller helicopters at that event.)

Georgia Tech's helicopter was capable of autonomous flight through waypoints, had cameras for (automatic) image recognition and its own version of a minibot that was dangled on a cable-supported flying boom and delivered through the window of a building (again, autonomously).

[Justin Stiltner]

Actually this one does pretty much the same thing. Although currently it doesn't deliver the robot through a window, but onto the ground to take soil samples. I do not know when this aircraft was purchased but I think it was previous to 2008.

you can just see the gimbaled camera under the nose, and the pipe on the back landing gear holds cameras used for stereo vision mapping. This was during field trials where the heli flew with a 35lb weight that was lowered 15m and the dynamics of the system recorded as the heli flew around.