FlyingFish
Participants:
- Aerospace Engineering Faculty: Ella Atkins, Pete Washabaugh, Luis Bernal
- Aerospace Engineering Students: Ryan Eubank, Andy Klesh, Nick Rooney
- EECS / Naval Architecture (NAME) Faculty: Guy Meadows (PI/NAME), Brian Gilchrist (EECS)
Funding/Sponsor:
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Persistent Ocean Surveillance (POS) Program
Synopsis
The FlyingFish autonomous seaplane was designed and constructed by a joint team of aerospace and marine hydro-dynamics researchers at the University of Michigan over a period of 6 month starting in May of 2007. The first "Fish" successfully completed Monterey Bay sea-trials in late October 2007, autonomously conducting a series of takeoff - through - landing flight segments on the open water. Designed for "station-keeping" the persistent surveillance system monitors the aircraft's position relative to a desired "watch" region and automatically initiates flights to reposition the craft as needed. The second generation vehicle, for which initial construction and testing has been completed, adds key features including solar energy harvesting and a significantly more advanced avionics system.
Publications/References
Macy, D., Eubank, R., Atkins, E., Bernal, L., Washabaugh, P., Meadows, G., Wild, N., Smith, D., Van Sumeren, H., "Flying Fish: A Persistent Ocean Surveillance Buoy with Autonomous Aerial Repositioning," AUVSI Conference, San Diego, CA, June 2008.
Meadows, G., Atkins, E., Washabaugh, P., Meadows, L., Bernal, L., Gilchrist, B., Smith, D., VanSumeren, H., Macy, D., Eubank, R., Smith, B., Brown, J., "The Flying Fish Persistent Ocean Surveillance Platform," Unmanned Unlimited Conference, Seattle, WA, Apr 2009.
Eubank, R., Atkins, E., Macy, D. "Autonomous Guidance and Control of the Flying Fish Ocean Surveillance Platform," Infotech@Aerospace Conference, Seattle, WA, Apr 2009.
