Seamatica Aerospace Limited

Published purpose

An optionally-piloted aircraft (OPA) is essentially a human-supervised autonomous aircraft. The pilot in command (PIC) sits in the seat of a normal manned aircraft that has been modified to be flown autonomously. The PIC supervises the flight of the aircraft and takes control when required to by the supervisory control system. This simulator will be used to explore the feasibility of training an expert system and studying the interaction between the autonomous system and a pilot. Real flight operations will be studied including search and rescue and surveillance. Unmanned aircraft operating truly autonomously could play an important part in better management of resources and the environment.