Look up autopilot in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The autopilot , or automatic pilot, is an aircraft system that automatically maintains a predetermined route or trajectory.
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Autopilot may also refer to:
The autopilot , or automatic pilot, is an aircraft system that automatically maintains a predetermined route or trajectory.
Autopilot may also refer to:
An uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs were originally developed through the twentieth century for military missions too "dull, dirty or dangerous" for humans, and by the twenty-first, they had become essential assets to most militaries. As control technologies improved and costs fell, their use expanded to many non-military applications. These include aerial photography, area coverage, precision agriculture, forest fire monitoring, river monitoring, environmental monitoring, policing and surveillance, infrastructure inspections, smuggling, product deliveries, entertainment, and drone racing.
Radio control is the use of control signals transmitted by radio to remotely operate a device. Examples of simple radio control systems are garage door openers and keyless entry systems for vehicles, in which a small handheld radio transmitter unlocks or opens doors. Radio control is also used for control of model vehicles from a hand-held radio transmitter. Industrial, military, and scientific research organizations make use of radio-controlled vehicles as well. A rapidly growing application is control of unmanned aerial vehicles for both civilian and military uses, although these have more sophisticated control systems than traditional applications.
An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations.
A dead man's switch is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally applied to switches on a vehicle or machine, it has since come to be used to describe other intangible uses, as in computer software.
In aviation, autoland describes a system that fully automates the landing procedure of an aircraft's flight, with the flight crew supervising the process. Such systems enable airliners to land in weather conditions that would otherwise be dangerous or impossible to operate in.
Hypermiling is driving or flying a vehicle with techniques that maximize fuel efficiency. Those who use these techniques are called "hypermilers". In the case of cars, this is an extreme form of energy-efficient driving.
In aviation, vertical navigation is glidepath information provided during an instrument approach, independently of ground-based navigation aids in the context of an approach and a form of vertical guidance in the context of climb/descent. An onboard navigation system displays a constant rate descent path to minimums. The VNAV path is computed using aircraft performance, approach constraints, weather data, and aircraft weight. The approach path is computed from the top of descent point to the end of descent waypoint, which is typically the runway or missed approach point.
Aeroflot Flight 593 was a passenger flight from Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow, Russia, to Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong. On 23 March 1994, the aircraft operating the route, an Airbus A310-304 flown by Aeroflot, crashed into the Kuznetsk Alatau mountain range in Kemerovo Oblast, killing all 63 passengers and 12 crew members on board.
The Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane was a project undertaken during World War I to develop a flying bomb, or pilotless aircraft capable of carrying explosives to its target. It is considered by some to be a precursor of the cruise missile.
First-person view (FPV), also known as remote-person view (RPV), or video piloting, is a method used to control a radio-controlled vehicle from the driver or pilot's viewpoint. Most commonly it is used to pilot a radio-controlled aircraft or other type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) such as a military drone. The operator gets a first-person perspective from an onboard camera that feeds video to FPV goggles or a monitor. More sophisticated setups include a pan-and-tilt gimbaled camera controlled by a gyroscope sensor in the pilot's goggles and with dual onboard cameras, enabling a true stereoscopic view.
A flight control mode or flight control law is a computer software algorithm that transforms the movement of the yoke or joystick, made by an aircraft pilot, into movements of the aircraft control surfaces. The control surface movements depend on which of several modes the flight computer is in. In aircraft in which the flight control system is fly-by-wire, the movements the pilot makes to the yoke or joystick in the cockpit, to control the flight, are converted to electronic signals, which are transmitted to the flight control computers that determine how to move each control surface to provide the aircraft movement the pilot ordered.
The MQM-42 was a supersonic target drone developed by North American Aviation. Developed in two subvariants, Redhead and Roadrunner, it was used by the United States Army in the 1960s and 1970s.
The gyroscopic autopilot was a type of autopilot system developed primarily for aviation uses in the early 20th century. Since then, the principles of this autopilot has been the basis of many different aircraft control systems, both military and civilian.
Paparazzi is an open-source autopilot system oriented toward inexpensive autonomous aircraft. Low cost and availability enable hobbyist use in small remotely piloted aircraft. The project began in 2003, and is being further developed and used at École nationale de l'aviation civile (ENAC), a French civil aeronautics academy. Several vendors are currently producing Paparazzi autopilots and accessories.
Mobileye Global Inc. is an Israeli autonomous driving company. It is developing self-driving technologies and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) including cameras, computer chips, and software. Mobileye was acquired by Intel in 2017 and went public again in 2022.
Experiments have been conducted on self-driving cars since 1939; promising trials took place in the 1950s and work has proceeded since then. The first self-sufficient and truly autonomous cars appeared in the 1980s, with Carnegie Mellon University's Navlab and ALV projects in 1984 and Mercedes-Benz and Bundeswehr University Munich's Eureka Prometheus Project in 1987. Since then, numerous major companies and research organizations have developed working autonomous vehicles including Mercedes-Benz, General Motors, Continental Automotive Systems, Autoliv Inc., Bosch, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab from University of Parma, Oxford University and Google. In July 2013, Vislab demonstrated BRAiVE, a vehicle that moved autonomously on a mixed traffic route open to public traffic.
An autonomous aircraft is an aircraft which flies under the control of automatic systems and needs no intervention from a human pilot. Most autonomous aircraft are unmanned aerial vehicle or drones. However, autonomous control systems are reaching a point where several air taxis and associated regulatory regimes are being developed.
Tesla Autopilot is an advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) developed by Tesla that amounts to partial vehicle automation. Tesla provides "Base Autopilot" on all vehicles, which includes lane centering and traffic-aware cruise control. Owners may purchase an upgrade to "Enhanced Autopilot" (EA) which adds semi-autonomous navigation on limited access roadways, self-parking, and the ability to summon the car from a garage or parking spot. The company claims the features reduce accidents caused by driver negligence and fatigue from long-term driving. Collisions and deaths involving Tesla cars with Autopilot engaged have drawn the attention of the press and government agencies.
In road-transport terminology, lane centering, also known as auto steer or autosteer, is an advanced driver-assistance system that keeps a road vehicle centered in the lane, relieving the driver of the task of steering. Lane centering is similar to lane departure warning and lane keeping assist, but rather than warn the driver, or bouncing the car away from the lane edge, it keeps the car centered in the lane. Together with adaptive cruise control (ACC), this feature may allow unassisted driving for some length of time. It is also part of automated lane keeping systems.
Loganair Flight 6780 was a scheduled domestic flight from Aberdeen Airport to Sumburgh Airport in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. On 15 December 2014, the Saab 2000 operating the flight was struck by lightning during the approach, and then plunged faster than the aircraft's maximum operating speed. The aircraft came within 1,100 feet (340 m) of the North Sea before the pilots recovered and returned to Aberdeen. All 33 passengers and crew were unharmed.