The Dragonfly 4,500 kg Class Guided Airdrop System

Abstract

The Dragonfly is a 3500 ft ram-air, precision airdrop system being developed under the Army JPADS ACTD program. The system; which includes an innovative main canopy, hardened airborne guidance unit (AGU), and autonomous GNC has been developed under a multi-contractor effort and managed by the Natick Soldier Center. Dragonfly’s canopy was designed to give maximum gliding performance while minimizing system cost. Using standard manufacturing techniques and low-cost materials, a glide-ratio of nearly 4:1 was achieved. The system’s AGU consists of two small, high-powered motors that operate the parafoil control lines, as well as an avionics suite to generate trajectory information for the flight software. The on-board GN&C algorithms have been developed to accommodate a low-cost processor by utilizing very simple command logic and a table driven trajectory profile for final-descent maneuvers. The flight software on-board the Dragonfly has also been tightly integrated with previously developed PADS mission planning software. Test drops of the Dragonfly have been conducted over the last year to evolve key components of the system and to evaluate the autonomous flight performance. The Dragonfly system had routinely demonstrated landing accuracies of 200 meters in flight tests, with a recent best of 23 meters.