Autonomous command and control system design and implementation for ram-air type parachute system

Air drop from aircraft is currently used in military operations, humanitarian aid operations and landing operations of aircraft such as spacecraft and rockets. The most important factors that prevent air drop by parachutes without guidance capability from being preferred by decision makers are the vulnerability of the aircraft to enemy threats and the dropping of the payload to undesirable points due to meteorological conditions. In this study, a system that enables autonomous steering of steerable parachutes is presented to figure out those problems. In addition to the original guidance system design, alternative trajectory algorithms are presented for the parachute to reach the target and land softly on the ground. In this study, a multi-phase trajectory algorithm is designed as approach, descent, landing and emergency phases. The approach phase is presented as two different paths, straight and zigzag, which are autonomously selected by the system according to the distance to the target. An electronic command and control board containing the required sensors, processor and motor drives was designed and manufactured. A Web interface and a ground test unit were built to test the system. PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) controller was preferred to control the trajectory and the PID controller parameters were found by PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm. In addition, Kalman filter was used for sensor filtering. Finally, two real air drop trials were carried out with the system, and it was observed that the system reached distances close to the desired target coordinates as a result of the real air drop trials. As a result, it has been determined that the system put forward for the autonomous use of wing-type parachute systems using domestic facilities can be used.