Programming drones to fly like birds

The Air Vehicle Intelligence and Autonomy Lab houses several of Jack Langelaan's robotic gliders and fully articulating helicopters. Langelaan, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, leads a team of researchers who are pursuing new and diverse uses for autonomous flying vehicles. Jack Langelaan's lab in the basement of Hammond Building is a model airplane builder's dream. In one room, graduate students Nathan Depenbusch and John Bird test algorithms on commercial flight simulators: Pilot's eye views of checkered green landscapes roll past on banked computer screens. In the other room, a half dozen small planes and a couple of tiny helicopters sit waiting in various stages of deconstruction. Langelaan, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at Penn State, is clearly in his element. He skirts past a wing assembly and picks up a smart phone-sized autopilot computer, offering it on his palm for inspection.