Vehicle Management System for Powered Parafoils

A platform agnostic, Manned / Unmanned (MUM) Vehicle Management System (VMS) / autopilot for powered parafoils will greatly enhance their utility and provide important new capabilities.  This will enable expansion of the utility applications of powered parafoils with important implications for military, commercial and civil applications. Powered parafoils excel because of their extreme low cost, portability, and low-signature potentials.  These attributes lend themselves to a variety of SOF mission sets including infiltration / exfiltration, personnel recovery, ISR, and CASEVAC.  This capability will also be of important benefit to cargo deliveries. The addition of MUM capability will increase the options for their deployment and facilitate their operation by non-pilot personnel.  In Multi-Domain, Anti Access/ Area Denied (A2/AD) environments featuring contested airspace and near peer adversaries aerial delivery of supplies puts transport aircraft and crews at high risk of detection and interdiction.  Powered parafoils have the potential to vastly improve the range of aerial delivery and offsets could be extended to 500 km or more.  Powered parafoils also have the potential to enable aerial delivery of cargos after being ground or ship launched under their own power, in addition to their ability to deploy from transport aircraft.  Their low cost to purchase and operate is attractive and so is their potential to free up transport aircraft for more critical missions. In addition to their military applicability MUM powered parafoils have numerous civil and commercial application potentials.  Delivery of Humanitarian Aid / Disaster Relief (HA/DR) supplies is a good fit for MUM powered parafoils and has the potential to save many lives.  As a low-cost, long-endurance remote sensor platform MUM powered parafoils have potential for border patrol, wildlife survey, scientific research and providing tools and equipment to remote industrial and mining operations.  This research and development project will deliver a platform agnostic capability for powered parafoils that will be adaptable to a variety of vehicle sizes and configurations.  This will lead to a broad potential for applications and will enable an international market for the new capability.  In many markets the economics of powered parafoil cargo deliveries will make it the only practical and affordable means of getting essential supplies to difficult to reach places.  The MUM capability will mean that aerial deliveries can be made without putting human life at risk and expand the overall potential.  This proposal is forwarded by a team with expertise in powered parafoil, vehicle management systems, and military systems development.  They are well positioned and highly qualified to accomplish the technical aspects of the program and progress it to an SBIR Phase III and commercial applications on a broad basis.