GPS CHUTE MAKES THE DROP

In the last month or so, we’ve talked about the U.S. Army’s inter­est in drone-​​launched mis­siles and spin­ning CopterBoxes, for air­drop­ping med­i­cines and sup­plies into the com­bat zone.
But the Marines have a pre­ci­sion air­drop project, too a GPS-​​guided cargo para­chute called the Sherpa Autonomous Parafoil Delivery System. And they’re test­ing it out over Iraq right now.
With con­ven­tional air­drops, the Marines have to fly low, around 2000 feet, to make sure the goods are deliv­ered accu­rately. And they have to do it fast, to make sure they don’t get hit with enemy fire. Sherpa’s satellite-​​enabled accu­racy lets the Marines cargo plane fly slower and higher — up to 25,000 feet, avoid­ing shots from below. The chute has been used twice in the last month or so to deliver food and sup­plies to Camp Korean Village in Iraq’s Al-​​Anbar province.
According to the Marines, “Sherpa uses a Global Positioning System com­puter and con­trol lines to steer itself from an alti­tude of up to five miles down to within a few meters of the des­ig­nated tar­get area on the ground, said Staff Sgt. Tammy A. Belleville.“

“Basically, the Sherpa is an over­sized 900 square foot para­chute canopy attached to a ser­vo­mo­tor,” said the 40-​​year-​​old Oceanside, Calif. native. “The GPS com­puter cal­cu­lates every­thing from winds, direc­tion of flight, tar­get coor­di­nates, alti­tude and other infor­ma­tion to steer the load to the des­ig­nated deliv­ery point on the deck.“
The ser­vo­mo­tor inside the Sherpa unit steers the con­trol lines that direct the para­chute and the load to the des­ig­nated tar­get point on the ground, said Belleville.
From an alti­tude of more than 10,000 feet, the Sherpas can guide their loads to other CSSB Marines on the deck below in five to 10 min­utes, depend­ing on the conditions.

But Sherpa is only a first step, really. The U.S. mil­i­tary is work­ing on a fam­ily of computer-​​guided cargo para­chutes, the Joint Precision AirDrop System, that could one day carry as much as 21 tons at a time.

September 17th, 2004 | Uncategorized | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.