AFRL Investments Provide High-Tech Cargo Delivery System

  • Published
  • By Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  • AFOSR
Arlington, Va. --  Years of basic research investments have paid off in the successful transition of Joint Precision Airdrop System (JPADS) technology. Conceived and funded by AFRL and the Army, the high-tech cargo delivery system's first deployment to a combat zone was in Afghanistan. JPADS uses the same Global Positioning System (GPS) technology that permits fighter pilots to identify smart bomb targets with amazing accuracy. Its precision enables high-altitude (24,000 ft) airdrop of cargo bundles. Consequently, the system provides a simultaneous opportunity for aircrews to redirect their routes in order to avoid ever-increasing improvised explosive device threats. This cutting-edge technology thus introduces a new era of more reliably and safely supplying ground troops and more efficiently conducting humanitarian relief missions. 

JPADS is the result of successfully integrated Air Force and Army technology. Specifically, it emerged as part of a special projects series prompted by New World Vistas, a comprehensive study initiated in 1995 by then Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall. In 2002, AFRL's investment of approximately  $1.5 million began to pay off. At this stage of the effort, researchers successfully demonstrated JPADS as an affordable, reliable means for increasing high-altitude airdrop accuracy. The development and   testing phases yielded additional improvements to the system's design in the form of enhanced guidance,  navigation, and control algorithms. At the time, however, JPADS was merely one decelerator candidate  in the scheme of the overall Joint Precision Aerial Delivery System program. 

In subsequent years, the Army worked to develop the physical hardware and mechanisms needed for  steering the parachute to a preprogrammed GPS location following the cargo's release from the plane.  Meanwhile, the Air Force and Army developed and fine-tuned JPADS-Mission Planner (JPADS-MP), the  software that executes precision calculations related to aircraft position, course, and airspeed--as well  as a host of other environmental variables capable of influencing airdrop accuracy. JPADS-MP runs on a laptop computer that aircrews use in performing JPADS missions. 

JPADS technology allows aircrews to perform airdrops out of harm's way, at higher altitudes and with  greater accuracy than previously possible, providing a cost-effective, just-in-time resupply capability that  protects aircrews and aircraft alike. To date, the research, development, testing, and evaluation funds invested in the JPADS-MP project total approximately $35 million.