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In relation to rapid development of possible applications of unmanned vehicles, new opportunities for their use are emerging. Among the most dynamic, we can distinguish package shipments, rescue and military applications, autonomous flights and unattended transportation. However, most of the UAV solutions have limitations related to their power supplies and the field of operation. Some of these restrictions can be overcome by implementing the cooperation between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). The purpose of this paper is to explore the problem of sensor fusion for autonomous landing of a UAV on the UGV by comparing the performance of precision landing algorithms using different sensor fusions to have precise and reliable information about the position and velocity.

The difficulties in this scenario, among others, are different coordination systems and necessity for sensor data from air and ground. The most suitable solution seems to be the use of widely available Global Navigational Satellite System (GNSS) receivers. Unfortunately, the position measurements obtained from cheap receivers are encumbered with errors when desiring precision. The different approaches are based on the usage of sensor fusion of Inertial Navigation System and image processing. However most of these systems are very vulnerable to lightning.

In this paper, methods based on an exchange of telemetry data and sensor fusion of GNSS, infrared markers detection and others are used. Different methods are compared.

The subject of sensor fusion and high-precision measurements in reference to the autonomous vehicle cooperation is very important because of the increasing popularity of these vehicles. The proposed solution is efficient to perform autonomous landing of UAV on the UGV.

The purpose of this paper is to show the performance during flight tests of the proposed GBAS Approach Service Type D navigation – intended to support autoland operations – in comparison to ILS.

An experimental GBAS station was installed at the research airport in Braunschweig. Data processing complied with the currently proposed requirements to support automatic landings. Corrections for GPS measurements and integrity parameters were sent to a research aircraft which was equipped with an experimental GPS receiver providing raw measurement data. The received data and measurements were then processed on board in real‐time and provide approach guidance information to the experimental pilot in form of a flight director indication. To evaluate system performance the authors create a truth reference track from a post processed carrier phase solution. Finally, the GBAS outputs and the received ILS signals are compared to the truth reference.

The system performed well within all specifications and showed full availability at all times during the flight. Compared to ILS, GBAS is significantly more precise and shows almost no noise.

The navigation solution was flown manually according to flight director displays, therefore no automatic approaches and landings could be performed.

It has been demonstrated that GBAS can support the intended operations under nominal conditions.

This work is part of the ongoing validation of the proposed standards for a satellite based landing system. It compares GBAS and ILS data from flight tests carried out with a representative aircraft.

Britannia's and Europe's first Boeing 767 (G‐BKPW) has been named “The Earl Mountbatten of Burma”.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the autonomous navigation and guidance scheme for future precise and safe planetary landing.

Autonomous navigation and guidance schemes are proposed based on inertial measurement unit (IMU) and optical navigation sensors for precise and safe landing of spacecrafts on the moon and planetary bodies. First, vision‐aided inertial navigation scheme is suggested to achieve precise relative navigation; second, two autonomous obstacle detection algorithms, based on grey image from optical navigation camera and digital elevation map form light detection and ranging sensor, respectively, are proposed; and third, flowchart of automatic obstacle avoidance maneuver is also given out.

This paper finds that the performance of the proposed scheme precedes the traditional planetary landing navigation and guidance mode based on IMU and deep space network.

The presented schemes need to be further validated by the mathematical simulations and hardware‐in‐loop simulations, and then they can be used in the real flight missions.

The presented schemes are applicable to both future planetary pin‐point landing missions and sample return missions with little modification.

This paper presents the new autonomous navigation and guidance scheme in order to achieve the precise and safe planetary landing.

The Department of Defence of the United States is in the process of implementing a satellite‐based navigation system called Navstar GPS (Global Positioning System). This system will have 24 satellites orbiting in three different orbits, with 8 satellites in each. Full implementation is planned for the mid to late 1980s. Partial use of the system should be possible commencing in the early 1980s. GPS can provide many unique features of particular benefit to helicopters, such as highly accurate airborne area navigation (RNAV) capability; accurate approach and landing guidance solely by reference to the airborne RNAV system; ability to function on a worldwide basis without the need for ground based navigation aids; unlimited capacity. Numerous benefits in addition to highly accurate navigation will accrue from civil application of GPS, including capability for automatic position reporting and air‐to‐air separation assurance. Cost benefits make application of GPS to civil aircraft in general, and particularly helicopters, highly attractive.

The purpose of this paper is to study the landing performance of the Mars lander considering uncertain landing conditions under two landing modes.

A dynamics analysis model for the legged Mars lander is established for landing simulation, where the nonlinear large-deformation flexible buffer rods are equivalently modeled with a rigid-body mechanism with external forces and movement limit. Sensitivities of the landing stability to various landing conditions are analyzed using the Quasi–Monte-Carlo-based Sobol’ method and computer-aided landing simulations. Moreover, based on the results of sensitivity analysis, sensitive parameters are selected for estimating the safe boundaries for stability indices of rotation and clearance.

It can be concluded from this study that the lander has excellent ability against overturning. The shutdown-before-touchdown strategy helps to maintain than landing pose, and the shutdown-at-touchdown strategy helps to prevent the nozzle from colliding with the surface of Mars.

This study provides a theoretical reference to choose the better landing strategies for Mars landers considering uncertain landing conditions.

A parameterized dynamics Mars lander model and a simplification method are proposed to simulate the landing on Mars. Uncertain landing conditions are parameterized and considered in the dynamics model. Sensitivity analysis and safe boundary methods are used to compare the landing performances with two landing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to solve the challenging problem of automatic carrier landing with the presence of environmental disturbances. Therefore, a global fast terminal sliding mode control (GFTSMC) method is proposed for automatic carrier landing system (ACLS) to achieve safe carrier landing control.

First, the framework of ACLS is established, which includes flight glide path model, guidance model, approach power compensation system and flight controller model. Subsequently, the carrier deck motion model and carrier air-wake model are presented to simulate the environmental disturbances. Then, the detailed design steps of GFTSMC are provided. The stability analysis of the controller is proved by Lyapunov theorems and LaSalle’s invariance principle. Furthermore, the arrival time analysis is carried out, which proves the controller has fixed time convergence ability.

The numerical simulations are conducted. The simulation results reveal that the proposed method can guarantee a finite convergence time and safe carrier landing under various conditions. And the superiority of the proposed method is further demonstrated by comparative simulations and Monte Carlo tests.

The GFTSMC method proposed in this paper can achieve precise and safe carrier landing with environmental disturbances, which has important referential significance to the improvement of ACLS controller designs.