Concept for a Vision-Augmented Automatic Landing System for VTOL Aircraft

Over the last decade, the aviation market has shown an increased interest for commercial (electric) Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles. In order to increase the maximum payload or range, future commercial VTOL operations may be conducted without a pilot onboard, which requires reliable automatic onboard systems. During human-over-the-loop operations, an automatic landing system safely guides the aircraft to the destination vertiport during approach and landing. A prototype vision-augmented automatic landing system for a fixed-wing aircraft has been developed within the C2Land project in collaboration with partners from academia and industry. The prototype system is different from traditional instrument landing systems as it is not dependent on ground-based infrastructure. Onboard optical systems are utilized to verify the integrity of the navigation solution used for flight control. Flight tests with a general aviation aircraft demonstrated the capabilities of this vision-based system. In the current C2Land project phase, the concept of vision-augmented automatic landing is transferred to VTOL aircraft. This paper presents the functional system architecture and operational scenario for the automatic landing system. The model-based development process is described, which is applied to demonstrate the landing system onboard an VTOL vehicle and may aid during a future risk-based certification process.