Ship landing - Immediately disarm upon contact with the deck

ArduPlane Plane 4.5
1

Hi everyone,

I’m working on a project involving VTOL landing on a moving ship, and I need advice on a safe and reliable disarm method.

The situation is as follows:

The VTOL attempts to land on a ship deck that is moving and affected by sea waves (heaving motion). I want VTOL to immediately disarm upon contact with the deck to prevent it from tipping over or lifting off due to instability.

My questions:

  1. Is there a recommended way in ArduPilot to trigger disarm based on contact or proximity?
  2. Would integrating a downward-facing rangefinder (e.g., lidar or ultrasonic) help detect precise altitude drop to zero (contact)?

I would greatly appreciate any insights, and if anyone has done similar shipboard VTOL work, I’d love to hear your approach.

Thanks!

2

Not sure, but see if Weight On Wheels helps. I believe you need landing gear enabled even if not actually using retracts and so on, otherwise the WoW would be ignored.

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