Aerobatic Flight Research.

This research started in 1999 and focuses on extending the flight envelope of flight vehicles, primarily small helicopters, for the purpose of making them more agile and enabling new modes of operation. This began with our work on aerobatics, which is, I believe, well summarized by this video. This research became a popular item at MIT, and is cited among MIT’s technological “firsts” for the year 2002. Later research has focused on landings at unusual attitudes, shown in that video. A paper describing the work done for this aerobatic landing may be found here. This research has been funded by the Office of Naval Research, Air Warfare and Weapons S&T Department. Still pictures of the helicopter in landing position may be found here.