Drones have become a more common sight in our skies and are used for everything from consumer hobbies like aerial photography to industrial applications such as farming, surveillance and logistics. However, they are not without their shortcomings, and one of those is landings. Almost half of all drone accidents occur when these uncrewed aerial vehicles attempt to touch down, especially in challenging environments or on fast-moving objects. But that could be a thing of the past as researchers have developed a system that can land smoothly on vehicles traveling at speed.
Landing on a moving vehicle is a major challenge for drones. Due to high wind drag, the drone has to pitch sharply forward, which risks propellers hitting the vehicle. Also, the landing gear is often too rigid, which means the drone bounces or flips when hitting the surface. To overcome these problems, researchers from the University of Sherbrooke in Canada built an experimental quadcopter, called DART (Direct Approach Rapid Touchdown), that uses friction shock absorbers (FSAs) and reverse thrust (RVT) to land on speeding vehicles.
How the new system works
DART can land safely on a moving vehicle by descending rapidly and aggressively to minimize exposure to wind gusts. Just before impact, it performs a rapid leveling maneuver to straighten up. When it touches down, the FSAs instantly absorb all the kinetic energy from the impact, so the drone never flips. At the same time, the motors activate the reverse thrust so that it pushes the drone firmly onto the vehicle, where it stays.
As detailed in their paper published in Journal of Field Robotics, the researchers conducted 38 successful consecutive landings on a pickup truck’s flatbed traveling at speeds up to 68 miles per hour. Being able to land on a fast-moving vehicle had another bonus.
“Using FSAs with RVT was also shown to increase the flight envelope at the start of the leveling maneuver by a factor of 38 compared to using the standard F450 landing gear without RVT, thus allowing a UAV to safely engage its pitch-leveling maneuver from a broader range of flight conditions,” wrote the researchers.
This vastly improved landing ability opens up a wide range of new applications. Safer, more reliable touchdowns could enable drones to land on fast boats, ships and emergency vehicles to deliver supplies. Additionally, the robust technology means that drones don’t have to be so weather-dependent and can be deployed in more challenging and unpredictable environments.
Written for you by our author Paul Arnold, edited by Gaby Clark, —this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive.
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More information:
Isaac Tunney et al, Friction Shock Absorbers and Reverse Thrust for Fast Multirotor Landing on High?Speed Vehicles, Journal of Field Robotics (2025). DOI: 10.1002/rob.70069
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