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Meeting	ACGS Committee Meeting 117 - Napa, CA - March 2016
Agenda Location	6 SUBCOMMITTEE C – AVIONICS AND SYSTEM INTEGRATION 6.3 Robotic Landing Gear of Helicopter
Title	Robotic Landing Gear of Helicopter
Presenter	Mark Costello
Affiliation	Georgia Tech
Available Downloads*	presentation
	Downloads are available to members who are logged in and either Active* or attended this meeting.
Abstract	Landing safely on uneven ground in unprepared areas and landing safely on a pitching and rolling ship represent two of the greatest challenges faced by rotorcraft conducting military operations in theater today. It is often impossible for pilots to know the slope dynamics of the terrain below them when landing in these environments at night, or in a Degraded Visual Environment (DVE). Conducting these types of landings is a difficult task for even the most skilled rotary wing aviators and has given rise to a significant number of rotorcraft accidents during practical military operations. Current rotorcraft use either skid or wheeled landing gear that is essentially fixed relative to the fuselage during landing. This ground interface strategy induces severe landing restrictions with typical slope landing limits on smooth terrain of 10 degrees or less. Reliable and safe landing on complex bumpy terrain strewn with obstacles such as logs or large rocks and boulders is not possible with current rotorcraft. When pilots seek to land in areas with complex terrain, they must do so very slowly and carefully to not exceed these landing limits. The problem is even more pronounced when attempting to safely interface rotorcraft with a moving ship deck. This presentation provides an overview of a fundamentally new idea for improved landing of rotorcraft where actively controlled robotic legs replace conventional rotorcraft landing gear. Through a combination of comprehensive multibody dynamic simulation and experimental flight testing, the substantial potential of this technology is highlighted for future rotorcraft. This includes reliable and rapid landing on highly sloped surfaces and also surfaces with significant motion. In addition, robotic legged landing gear can be used to mitigate the effects of hard landings and it can also be used to stabilize the ground resonance instability. These substantial new capabilities come with the price of increased weight for the landing gear system. However, for the systems studied to date, the landing gear weight increase is fairly modest.