Beacon Based Autonomous Airdrop Systems: Back to the Future

Current autonomous airdrop systems critically rely on GPS feedback for inertial position and velocity information. Future airdrop missions will involve scenarios where it is desired to aerially deliver payloads accurately in an area where GPS is not available. In these situations, a pressing need exists to create useful feedback information from a non-GPS source for use by the autonomous airdrop system guidance and control algorithm. This work addresses this issue through implementation of radio beacons which can be deployed by ground crew on site to retrieve package delivery. Current radio beacon technology is presented in addition to two control algorithms designed around different levels of radio beacon feedback information.