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Aviation History
2004
2004-06 - 0008.PDF
AVIONICS & ELECTRONICS FINALIST MICROPILOT ACHIEVEMENT: Miniaturised autopilot for unmanned and micro air vehicles Weighing 28g, MicroPilot's MP2028g is the world's smallest full functional autopilot. Canada's MicroPilot manufactures miniature autopilots for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and micro aerial vehicles (MAV). With more than 200 clients worldwide MicroPilot sells autopilots to academic, military and research institutions worldwide, as well as OEM UAV manufacturers and end users. In July 2003, it unveiled the MP2028g. At just 10cm long, 4cm wide and 1.5cm tall, MicroPilot claims the MP2028g is the world's smallest UAV autopilot. Despite its size, the company says the MP2028g retains all the capabilities of its existing MP2000. Through several tech nical and operational advancements the MP2028g packs everything - including all sensors and a GPS receiver - into 28 grams. This, says MicroPilot, makes it capable of stabilising and guiding anything from highly-functional, high speed UAVs through backpack UAVs to the emerging MAV market. According to Howard Loewen, MicroPilot's president and chief tech nical officer: "Up until this point the development of micro air vehicles has been hampered by the lack of suitable autopilot for control and flight guid ance. At only 28 grams the MP2028g will take micro air vehicles from the research labs and into the users' hands." Capabilities include airspeed hold, alti tude hold, turn coordination, GPS navi gation, plus autonomous operation from launch to recovery. Extensive data logging and manual overrides are supported, as is a highly-functional command buffer. All feedback loop gains and flight parameters are user- programmable and adjustable in flight. The MP2028g autopilot includes the HORIZONmp ground control software that offers a point-and-click interface for mission planning, parameter adjust ment, flight monitoring and mission simulation. HORIZONmp can support multiple UAVs, display multiple video streams and support video-indexed telemetry. In the past three years MicroPilot's sales have grown by more than 300% and the company has opened a new flight test facility. Situated on 16Ha, this 900m2 facility will allow for more efficient product development and testing. FINALIST ROCKWELL COLLINS ACHIEVEMENT: WXR-2100 MultiScan weather radar In 2001 Rockwell Collins launched its WXR-2100 MultiScan weather radar in a bid to reduce the sort of unpleasant surprises with which the atmosphere can test the most sophisticated of aircraft. The company claims this equipment to be the industry's first fully-automatic radar to provide enhanced safety by reducing the need for manual interven tion. It uses multiple-tilt angles and data processing to provide more complete information for weather hazard avoid ance. It also alerts flightcrews to poten tially dangerous windshear during the take-off and approach segments. The key to MultiScan's operation, says Rockwell Collins, is its ability to look down towards the bottom reflective portion of a thunderstorm and eliminate the ground clutter with advanced digital signal processing. Its patented Overflight protec tion mode also allows crews to avoid inad vertent thunderstorm top penetrations, which account for a significant portion of aircraft turbulence encounters. Other features of MultiScan include what the company describes as 'true 320nm' range Last year, the company completed certi fication of the WXR-2100 on all Boeing aircraft and it anticipates similar certifica tion on the full Airbus range early this year. Meanwhile, the latest evolution of the radar, the MultiScan Global, has been launched with key enhancements including digitisation and data base correlation of volumetric radar scans MultiScan weather radar automates functions for added safety. and automatic hazard assessment. The latter facility involves combining oceanic/continental weather correla tion, temperature-based gain and advanced radar threshold technology to provide an actual hazard assessment of the weather radar rather than simply using the radar as what Rockwell Collins describes as a 'rain gauge'. Future developments of MultiScan will include extended-range (20-25nm) enhanced turbulence detection and Predictive Overflight, which will show the vertical development of thunderstorms below the aircraft's flight path in order to predict possible turbulence. 6
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