MAI: Cargo unmanned aerial vehicle

2020: Announcement of the MAI cargo unmanned aerial vehicle

On January 15, 2020 the Moscow Aviation Institute announced creation of the cargo unmanned aerial vehicle capable to soft-land in case of state of emergency.

It is planned that the device will be used for testing of samples of the navigation GLONASS systems equipment in flight conditions. Also it can be used in sea search and rescue transactions, as carriers of repeaters of communication and for agrochemical treatment of fields.

Our UAV is in fact a paraplane which at change of weather conditions or emergence of an emergency situation provides soft landing without negative effects for payload. The device is completely autonomous: the university developed for it hardware-program a complex. On personal computer the route about which the UAV should fly is set, then registers in a normal flash card and is inserted into the on-board computer, – Sergey Akhramovich, the design engineer, the senior teacher of "Systems Analysis and Management" department of MAI speaks

The UAV is capable to accept aboard to 15 kg of a disposable load and to make autonomous flight along the set route on long distances, without involving the operator and tele-command system.

Construction represents a wing of aeroshyutny type which using slings fastens to a motor-gondola with an onboard management system and the electric motor of draft. Depending on the area of a wing loading capacity can reach up to 120 kg, time of nonstop flight is till 3 o'clock and depends on the weight of a load and capacity of rechargeable batteries. Airspeed of horizontal flight — up to 50 km/h.

Control of the UAV is exercised on height and a corner of pitch of the draft engine, and at the rate of — toggles (managing slings) which reject back left and right edges of an aeroshyutny wing.

Designers of MAI also involved artificial intelligence: he makes the independent decision depending on external conditions and mass of payload. The architecture of expert system is developed in the CLIPS language.

The most part of time the device performs active maneuvering at the rate of and height, being in the planning mode with the switched-off draft engine that considerably increases time of flight of the UAV. The engine turns on in case of need.

Students, graduate students, young specialists and the leading scientists of the university are involved in the project. Flight tests took place in airfield of Alferyevo, the UAV carried out all assigned tasks.

Robotics