A teleoperated unmanned rotorcraft flight test technique

NASA and the US Army are jointly developing a teleoperated unmanned rotorcraft research platform at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center. This effort is intended to provide the rotorcraft research community an intermediate step between wind tunnel rotorcraft studies and full-scale flight testing. The research vehicle is scaled such that it can be operated in the NASA Langley 14- by 22-foot subsonic tunnel or be flown freely at an outside test range. The authors briefly describe the system's requirements and the techniques used to combine the various technologies present in the system to meet these requirements. They also discuss the status of the development effort.<>