Robot Pilot: A New Autonomous System Toward Flying Manned Aerial Vehicles

The robot pilot is a new concept of a robot system that pilots a manned aircraft, thereby forming a new type of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that makes full use of the platform maturity, load capacity, and airworthiness of existing manned aircraft while greatly expanding the operation and application fields of UASs. In this research, the implementation and advantages of the robot pilot concept are discussed in detail, and a helicopter robot pilot is proposed to fly manned helicopters. The robot manipulators are designed according to the handling characteristics of the helicopter-controlling mechanism. Based on a kinematic analysis of the robot manipulators, a direct-driving method is established for the robot flight controller to reduce the time delay and control error of the robot servo process. A supporting ground station is built to realize different flight modes and the functional integration of the robot pilot. Finally, a prototype of the helicopter robot pilot is processed and installed in a helicopter to carry out flight tests. The test results show that the robot pilot can independently fly the helicopter to realize forward flight, backward flight, side flight, and turning flight, which verifies the effectiveness of the helicopter robot pilot.