Aerial Delivery - AGAS

Affordable Guided Airdrop System (AGAS)

HDT offers the Affordable Guided Airdrop System (AGAS) to meet the demanding precision airdrop needs of today's military customers. Development of the system began in 1999 in conjunction with the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground and the Naval Postgraduate School. In a radical departure from conventional airdrop systems, the AGAS is designed to operate with existing round cargo parachutes as opposed to new, costly parafoils. Test results from multiple customer demonstrations have confirmed the AGAS to be the most accurate, reliable, low-cost precision airdrop system available to meet today's military needs.

System Description

AGAS is a low-glide trajectory control system for precision cargo airdrop. It is designed for use with existing parachutes and standard airdrop packages (e.g., A-22). Use of existing canopies and cargo delivery systems reduces the overall cost of deploying a payload fitted with the AGAS.  The AGAS consists of:

• Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) electronics and software
• A windsonde
• Mission planner software
• Electromechanical parachute riser actuation system

The system control and GN&C equipment (components of the AGAS unit) are placed on top of the payload, and the electromechanical riser actuation hardware is connected to the parachute risers. When a riser is actuated, the parachute deforms, causing it to glide in a direction relative to the actuation.

A windsonde is first dropped from the airplane and then transmits wind data to the mission planner software on a laptop computer, either on the ground or in the aircraft. The mission planner computes a trajectory and a release point for the payload, and these data are uploaded to the GN&C flight computer onboard the AGAS unit. Corrections to the glide path are made as necessary during the descent by actuating the parachute risers in order to achieve an accurate landing.

AGAS was designed to be simple and easy to use. It was also designed to be used with existing parachutes (e.g., the G-12) and cargo delivery systems (e.g., the A-22). All of this results in a lower cost and an extremely shallow learning curve for new users. AGAS software was also designed to be simple and easy-to-use. The user only needs to fill in a simple form and the software takes care of the rest.

At the Precision Airdrop Technology Conference and Demonstration (PATCAD) 2003, AGAS demonstrated its incredible precision and reliability by putting six payloads within a 26-meter CEP (circular error probable) of the target, after being dropped from 10,000 feet MSL (above mean sea level). No other system came close to this level of accuracy or consistency.