Researchers at the Technical University of Munich have successfully tested a completely automatic landing with vision assisted navigation that functions without the need for ground-based systems.
As part of the government-funded C2Land project, researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Technische Universität Braunschweig developed a landing system which lets smaller aircraft land without assistance from ground-based systems.
Test pilot Thomas Wimmer is completely convinced by the landing system. He said, “The cameras already recognize the runway at a great distance from the airport. The system then guides the aircraft through the landing approach on a completely automatic basis and lands it precisely on the runway’s centerline.”
“Automatic landing is essential, especially in the context of the future role of aviation,” said Martin Kügler, research associate at the TUM Chair of Flight System Dynamics.