Perigeo
Autonomous parafoil development for the experimentation in Earth’s atmosphere of research technologies to be used in space programs.
PERIGEO project arises with the aim of developing infrastructures to support research and testing for new technologies to be used in space programs. Providing means, such as autonomous guided parafoil systems, for on Earth´s experimentation of equipment to be used beyond our atmosphere.
A wide variety of feasible technologies are still not being used in space missions because of being considered risky, as they cannot be tested in real operation environment. By having affordable systems for testing such technology highly favors space science development. Within the PERIGEO project both simulation and real test are used to validate means developed.
Embentions participation focuses on the development of a fully autonomous unmanned parafoil for precise cargo delivery and aircraft / UAV landing. This system, powered by Veronte Autopilot, includes all necessary elements for accurately positioning a cargo on a target area.
Developed equipment includes not only control electronics but also all mechanical elements needed for performing complete missions. This fully redundant system is commanded by brushless engines which move a reel containing parafoil control chords, transmitting autopilot commands to the parafoil surface.
Autonomous missions have been optimized for long range and precise cargo delivery. Performing low descent approach together with a near range descending maneuver and a final Flare action for precisely landing on the desired GPS coordinates.
Embentions participation within the project is not limited to the autonomous flight parafoil system, main goals pursued by Embention can be summarized as follows:
- Advanced algorithms for fully autonomous guided parafoil control.
- Accuracy improvement on cargo delivery systems with parafoil shaped platforms.
- Guided parafoil control for long range and high precision landing.
- Reconstruction techniques development and 3D surface maps.
- Applied research using a Dual Synthetic Environment for validation.
PERIGEO project includes various companies forming a consortium: Elecnor Deimos, Embention, GMV, Aernnova, TCP, Ixion, Aerlyper y SCR, together with research organizations, such as: INTA, Carlos III University of Madrid, Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), IG, IMDEA, CTA, CATEC y AICIA, all this financed by CDTI.
