Landing safely

Students from SCE developed an autonomous system that identifies crosswinds and reconfigures the light planes’ flight paths within 20 thousandths of a second—faster than any human pilot

Graduates of SCE’s Department of Mechanical Engineering on the Ashdod campus, Dan Benjamin and Dov Lyudomirsky, mentored by Dr. Shayke Bilu and Dr. Danniel Stoller, as part of their final project, developed an autonomous stabilization system, which helps light planes land safely under crosswind conditions—one of the most challenging and risky phases of any flight. This innovation, which gained a great deal of attention, has been accepted for presentation at the “2026 International CoDIT Conference” to be held in Bari, Italy from July 13-16, 2026.

Sudden crosswinds during the landing may divert small craft from their runways, causing harm to surrounding structures or to the planes’ undercarriages or landing gears within mere milliseconds. The reaction time of human pilots is 300-500 milliseconds—too slow to cope with strong, sudden gusts of wind. This system, developed by SCE students, identifies the deviation and immediately initiates an automatic steering correction in less than 20 thousandths of a second—ten times faster than any human pilot, thus bridging the gap between the fast wind dynamics and human reactivity.

During a real-time field test, five autonomous landings were performed under winds up to 35 km/h. The system identified and rectified 214 significant path deviations, totally preventing dangerous landings involving sideloading, landing-gear damage, and significantly reducing the pilot’s workload. This solution is based on low-cost, accessible components, making it applicable to all small, unmanned aircraft, in which complex mechanical solutions are not viable.

Students, Dan Benjamin and Dov Lyudomirsky: “We wanted to take a real problem from the world of aeronautics and to solve it using simple, accessible components. To see the system realigning itself when struck by strong winds during landing, and to achieve recognition for this at an international conference. That’s a satisfying feeling, especially as the conclusion of the degree.”

Project Mentor, Dr. Shayke Bilu: “This project demonstrates how proper engineering thinking makes it possible to inexpensively reach performances that, thus far, had been the sole purview of pricey systems. The acceptance of this article by the “2026 International CoDIT Conference” attests to the high level of the final projects in SCE’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.