Parachute Deployment
Simulate the transition from body-only airflow to pilot chute extraction, line stretch, partial inflation, and full canopy flight.
Active airflow flight simulation
Wind Labs
Developing AeroCage chambers for live-air canopy training, controlled parachute flight, unmanned aircraft testing, and aerodynamic recovery research.
A full-scale controlled wind environment
AeroCage brings the flight envelope indoors.
AeroCage is an active airflow chamber concept using vertical lift fans, circumferential side-wall fan arrays, sensors, and software control to keep a person, canopy, drone, payload, or recovery system inside a commanded safety envelope.
The system is designed for staged acceleration, deployment, canopy inflation, canopy flight, flare practice, gust profiles, crosswinds, rotating wind vectors, and repeatable unmanned flight testing.
What the platform enables
One chamber. Multiple flight regimes.
Canopy Control
Practice heading control, turns, flare timing, descent profiles, and limited high-performance landing scenarios in a bounded chamber.
Drone Testing
Hold unmanned aircraft and payloads at target positions while applying vertical airflow, crosswinds, gusts, turbulence, and recovery profiles.
Unmanned flight testing
Repeatable wind profiles for aircraft, payloads, and recovery systems.
AeroCage applies controlled lift, crosswind, turbulence, descent, hover, landing, and emergency recovery airflow while sensors track vehicle attitude and position.
Floor lift
Clustered vertical fans
Side control
Opposing fan vectors
Guidance
Sensor-driven envelope
Modes
Human and unmanned flight
Partnerships, testing, and research