Have you ever seen the video of the two SpaceX booster rockets returning to Earth after a successful launch and landing themselves upright? If not, Google it. It is truly a sight to see. The event took place in early 2018 as a demonstration of what SpaceX technology is now capable of. A lot of great engineering went into the launch and landing.
Landing two rockets upright on a pad would not have been possible without an array of technologically advanced sensors and equally advanced computer software. Yet what SpaceX accomplished was only the start. While they are focusing on building spacecraft that will make Mars colonization possible, Honeywell Aerospace is working on similar technology for everyday life on Earth. Learn more at Best Data Science Course in Hyderabad.
Developing Urban Air Vehicles
The Honeywell project is designed to make ‘flying cars’ a reality. What the company describes as the urban air mobility (UAM) vehicle needs to have the capability of landing autonomously without the need for a runway. Autonomous landings are seen as critical to making flying cars the future of urban transportation.
At the core of the project are sensors and cameras. Honeywell Aerospace is designing a system capable of identifying small markings on the ground, markings that are similar to QR codes. The markings act as a guidance system of sorts.
While an on-board camera locates and zeros in on those markings, a variety of sensors pay attention to everything from altitude to airspeed. All of the information collected by the camera and sensors is fed into a computer system capable of running the complex equations necessary to keep the vehicle on its flight path and eventually land safely.
Engineering Solves Problems
The amount of engineering required to pull off the Honeywell project compares to the engineering SpaceX relies on to get their rockets back to earth. Some brilliant minds are doing incredible things in both projects. It is somewhat ironic that the heart of what they do is solving problems.
At Rock West Solutions in California, engineers work with their clients to overcome all sorts of problems. Rock West’s engineering services are capable of tackling projects in healthcare, aerospace, defense, and other sectors.
Rock West engineers explain that successful sensor development relies on understanding potential problems and figuring out ways to overcome them. There are plenty such problems that come with attempting to autonomously land an air vehicle vertically.
Vertical takeoff and landing by way of manual control was mastered decades ago. We have all seen the technology in helicopters and drones. But landing autonomously is an entirely different prospect. Take the pilot out of the equation and you suddenly have more problems to overcome.
An Electronic Brain Substitute
Landing a helicopter vertically is possible only because the human brain is capable of doing such amazing things. Even with the help of on-board computers, a pilot’s brain has to work out complex computations to get a helicopter safely on the ground. SpaceX and Honeywell are essentially working on systems that act as electronic brain substitutes.
Their sensors and cameras act like human senses to monitor and collect data. Their computer systems are equivalent to the human brain, running one calculation after the next and then spitting out information to the mechanical systems that do the actual work.
Again, the amount of engineering that goes into developing autonomously landing aircraft is unfathomable for most of us. Thank goodness there are people smart enough to pull it off. Without them, any dream of colonizing Mars would remain just that. Likewise, any hope of developing flying cars would be limited to futuristic sci-fi novels. Check out Best Data Science Course in Bangalore to learn more
