Overview
- NAWCAD completed live flight demonstrations in mid-October showing a tactical drone flew mission tasks and autonomously landed on a pitching ship without GPS or a pilot using only onboard cameras, motion sensors and algorithms.
- The system identifies ship shapes and visual cues from the drone’s mission cameras, predicts deck movement in real time, and times touchdown through onboard guidance, navigation and control software.
- NAWCAD says the software is ready to move into operational and fleet testing and is coordinating transitions into Navy acquisition efforts including the Small TUAS office, the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program and DARPA’s EVADE project.
- Shifting recovery functions into airborne software removes the need for costly shipboard radar and lengthy ship modifications, which could speed deployment across small quadcopters up to larger combat or resupply drones and reduce integration costs for sailors.
- The project was funded by the Naval Innovative Science and Engineering Program and the Office of Naval Research and builds on earlier ship recovery work that relied on ship-mounted radar, signaling a push for GPS‑denial resilience in contested maritime environments.