Technology | DOI: 10.1145/1516046.1516053
Gregory Goth
autonomous helicopters
Researchers are improving unmanned helicopters’ capabilities
to address regulatory requirements and commercial uses.
ThErE WoulD sEEm
market niche for unmanned
helicopters. Equipped with
lightweight onboard cameras, they could serve as
to be a clear
mapping agents or search-and-rescue
“eyes” in places where using a full-sized helicopter and a human crew
are life threatening or cost prohibitive. Motion-picture producers have
explored the use of autonomous helicopters in filming action scenes in locations where the safety of both flight
crews and movie cast members could
be at risk from using larger aircraft.
Humanitarian groups have considered using autonomous helicopters for
land-mine detection, while public safety agencies have explored using them
for inspecting bridges and other structures where human inspectors might
be endangered. And they are becoming
mainstays in applications such as crop
dusting in Japan, where the need to fly
at a low altitude and spray chemicals
can be dangerous for pilots.
Academic and commercial research
teams have been perfecting the capabilities of autonomous helicopters for
nearly two decades, with such widespread deployments as a goal. Algorithmic and technological advances are
occurring at a steady pace, but regulatory roadblocks and trade restrictions
are hampering market acceptance.
And, though much of the cutting-edge
research in autonomous helicopters
demonstrates significant crossover
potential between disparate computational and scientific disciplines as well
as other aviation applications, many
researchers find themselves stymied
by these non-technological obstacles
that stem from policy concerns.
“A lot of vehicles have at least kinematics that are similar to helicopters,” says Adam Coates, a Stanford
University Ph.D. student who coauthored Learning for Control from Multiple Demonstrations, which won the
One of stanford university’s autonomous helicopters flying upside down in an aerobically
challenging airshow. for more photos and video, visit http://heli.stanford.edu/index.html.
International Conference for Machine
Learning’s best application paper for
2008, and describes how he and colleagues programmed an autonomous
helicopter to perform complex aerobatics. “But I think the biggest hurdle
is regulatory. It’s virtually impossible
to do real UAV [unmanned aerial vehi-cle] operations unless you’re a defense
contractor or the military—so you have
to go to a big defense contractor if you
want to do real UAV research.”
Regulatory hurdles vary, depending on the sovereignty involved. In the
U.S., for example, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has yet to
issue regulations regarding the use of
autonomous helicopters in public airspace. A 2008 report by the U.S. General Accountability Office (GAO) noted
that unmanned aircraft, whether fixed
wing or rotor powered, cannot meet
the National Airspace System’s safety
regulations for tasks such as avoiding
other aircraft. Therefore, autonomous
crafts’ use is limited to case-by-case
approval by the FAA, and usually restricted to line-of-sight operation. In
Japan, the government has placed
strict trade restrictions on the Yamaha
RMAX autonomous helicopter, which
is regarded as the industry benchmark,
to prevent it from being used for military operations by unfriendly nations.
Omead Amidi, a research faculty
member at Carnegie Mellon University
and CEO of SkEyes Unlimited, a Washington, PA-based firm that manufactures instruments for autonomous
aircraft, concurs with Coates’ observation about the dearth of regulatory infrastructure hindering wider development and deployment of the craft.
“If you have a helicopter flying over
your head, it’s because everything
about it is regulated,” Amidi says. “No
such thing exists for autonomous helicopters. If you could convince me to
PhotograPh by eugene fratkin