Sea wave modeling and shipboard landing simulation of tilt rotor unmanned aerial vehicle

Shipboard landing of Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft is an important consideration to operate aircraft in the ocean. The oceanic operation of aircraft has more difficult environment than the one on the ground due to salty, fogy, and windy condition. Especially the gust and the vortex around the structures on the ship make the approach of aircraft difficult. The movement of ship board in roll, pitch, and heave by wind and sea wave also makes the landing of aircraft severe. Tilt rotor UAV developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) basically aimed to be operated on the ground and to be expanded to an oceanic operation. The simulation environment of UAV to evaluate a various flight condition also considers to be applied to the oceanic operation. In this paper, the sea state conditions according to amplitude of sea wave and wind velocity was investigated and the mathematical description of sea state through sea wave modeling was conducted. In the condition of each sea state modeled with sea wave and wind, the shipboard landing of tilt rotor UAV was evaluated in simulation environment.