Powered Parafoil Vehicle Management System (PP-VMS)

Powered parafoils have numerous advantages over competing platforms including their low-cost, high payload capacity, ease of use, and long-range capabilities. Current platforms are limited by the lack of a dedicated vehicle management system designed around the demands of powered parafoil flight. Paragrine Systems proposes the development of a Powered Parafoil Vehicle Management System (PP-VMS) that will significantly increase the utility of powered parafoil mobility platforms through a system that is easy to use, low-cost, and reliable. This project proposes an essential innovation: the integration of existing hardware and software technologies from unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and the Autonomous Guidance Unit (AGUs) used in Joint Precision Aerial Delivery Systems (JPADS) into a vehicle management system that will enhance and expand the utility of a variety of powered parafoil missions and platforms. Current guided parachute delivery systems, like JPADS, do not have the capability to control engine power/thrust, an essential feature for powered parafoils, the addition of which will enable far greater landing accuracy as descent rates will be able to be controlled and go-arounds will be made possible. Furthermore, JPADS guidance systems are also not configured for long-distance navigation, equipped with ground proximity sensing to facilitate better-timing for landing flares. Addition of PP-VMS capability will enable more precise, longer range cargo delivery as well as adapt powered parafoils for other missions such as ISR, weapons delivery, and decreasing pilot workload on manned operations. This project will advance a PP-VMS that is usable on multiple powered parafoil platforms of vary sizes, weights, and manufactures. It will have mission programmability with waypoint following, loiter patterns, and autonomous path reversal. PP-VMS will also have enhanced ground proximity and obstacle avoidance features to facilitate improved landings and will be enabled for remotely piloted operations. The addition of PP-VMS to new and existing platforms is expected to deliver numerous benefits to both military and civilian end-users through its easy of use, low-cost, and reliability. The mission impact of this project on the Air Force and the Department of Defense will be to transform the battlefield mobility enabled by low cost powered parafoil technology with reduced training requirements and expanded mission capabilities. These improvements will improve Global Access, Precision Strike, PR capabilities, and increased offset resupply through delivery of tactically flexible platforms for delivery of medical teams and Support Equipment, and capability for Air Force PR and Special Operations Forces (SOF).  PP-VMS will also reduce combat risk to transport aircraft and their crews by enabling offsets of several hundred miles from point of departure from the transport aircraft to point of delivery on the ground.