Stabilized Helicopter Landing Platform

The purpose of this project is to design, analyze, and fabricate an autonomous stabilizing helicopter landing platform. The prototype designed and built by the team is scaled to represent ship size (littoral combat ship USS Coronado), ship motion, and helicopter size. The prototype includes a scale model of the 20-foot-wide helicopter platform that remains stabilized through constant adjustment of the platform level with respect to the simulated ship motion. Using platform-mounted inertial sensors, the platform can adjust its pitch and roll in the opposing direction of the ship’s motion. Because the helicopter platform is not located at the center of the ship, calculations were done based upon the full-scale center of mass dimensions of the USS Coronado. These results were scaled to 10 percent and are implemented in the design of the prototype system. The scale model landing platform is attached to a base that mechanically simulates the ship’s pitch and roll motion. A stabilized helicopter landing platform mitigates the operational limits induced by the pitch and roll of the ship by autonomously tilting to cancel ship pitch and roll angles. This prototype system will be used by Boeing to demonstrate the complexities of landing helicopters on ships at sea.