Compared to their unguided counterparts, current guided airdrop systems are costly and have substantial logistics requirements, leading to limited use in practice. Realization of frequent guided airdrop systems requires improvements in system cost, logistics footprint, and ease of use. Bleed air control is a maturing parafoil control technology that reduces the size, weight, and power requirements associated with automatic control of a guided airdrop system by an order of magnitude. These components offer the promise to dramatically reduce unit cost and logistics requirements. Additionally, they remove the requirement to have a traditional AGU located at a rigging confluence point. A guided airdrop system concept that employs in-canopy bleed air actuation driven by a new in-canopy autonomous guidance unit (ICAGU) is thoroughly detailed. That is, all components necessary for guidance and control are integrated into the parafoil canopy with the desire to reduce power consumption and weight while maximizing the opportunity for new sensing and guidance algorithm implementation. A summary of the complete system is provided and its scalability to various fielded autonomous airdrop systems is considered.
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