UAV Recovery System

A lightweight, stowable UAV Recovery System is proposed to meet the Navy’s need for a lightweight, inexpensive, automated ship system for safely recovering and securing multiple types of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on small deck Navy ships with minimal ship design and onboard manning impacts. During the project engineers will design, construct and demonstrate a Recovery System prototype in a series of tests in which a Pioneer-size, fixed wing, test UAV (also manufactured for the program) will be guided to the Recovery System and captured. Each successive test represents an incremental and reasonable level of risk, enhancing the chances of success. Initially, the recoveries will be land-based and remotely-piloted. However, by the end of the project, the UAV will be guided autonomously by TALS (Tactical Automatic Landing System), and recoveries will be ship-based under calm sea conditions. With the replacement of TALS by UCARS-V2 during a later program, recoveries at more demanding sea states and conditions would be readily possible.