Silicon All The Way -- Strategy Page
March 20, 2012: The U.S. Navy wants its new carrier based UAVs to understand the hand signals deck crews use to direct pilots of aircraft around the flight deck. This is because, as the U.S. Navy hustles to ready its X-47B for carrier landings, attention has also been paid to how deck crew would communicate with the UAV once it had landed. Currently, UAVs like this are moved around the landing area by their remote operators. For the U.S. Air Force, this involves a local operator, not the ones, based in the U.S. that operates these UAVs remotely via a satellite link. While the navy could go with a hand held device (like a video game controller) it would be simpler if there were pattern recognition software for one of the X-47Bs cameras that would recognize and interpret the deck crew hand signals.
The X-47B will begin landing on, and taking off from, carriers next year. Take-offs are relatively easy. The hard part is landing. Software has already been developed for this, and last year a manned carrier aircraft (an F-18), using the X-47B automated landing software, successfully landed on a carrier. Actually, this kind of software has been in development for over a decade, to make it easier for human pilots to land on carriers (the most difficult type of landing). It was not a major leap to make this software even more powerful and reliable. When the X-47Bs begin landing on carriers, it will be silicon all the way.
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My Comment: For more info on the X-47b, go here and here.
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