Skip to main content (Press Enter).
 News
    
        Photos

    Week in Photos

    Air Force TV

    Commentaries

    Features

    Art

    About Us
    
        Air Force Senior Leaders
    
        SECAF

    CSAF

    CMSAF

    Biographies

    Fact Sheets

    SECAF Reading List

    CSAF Leadership Library
    
        CSAF Leadership Library 2022

    CSAF Leadership Library 2021

    CSAF Reading List Pre-2020 Archive
    
        2018 CSAF Reading List

    2017 CSAF Reading List

    2016 CSAF Reading List

    CSAF Leadership Library 2023

    CMSAF Leadership Library

    50 Years of the CMSAF

    Adjunct Professors

    Air Force Strategic Documents

    Arctic Strategy

    Empowered Airmen

    State Licensure Portability

    Careers

    AF Federal Advisory Committees

    AF 75th Anniversary

    Policy Updates

    AF Content Management

    Contact Us

    AF Sites
    
        Site RegistrationU.S. Air Force LogoAir Force

        Policy UpdatesNewsroomReoptimizationBIOGRAPHIESAF Senior Leaders      The Auto Belay Insertion System allows operators to engage a one-handed brake without compromising rapid descent and emergency detachment from the rope in hostile environments. A team of Air Force Academy cadets were listed as named inventors for this technology on three patents awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. (Courtesy Photo)Academy cadets’ invention to support battlefield Airmen awarded patents
                        
                        
                        The Auto Belay Insertion System allows operators to engage a one-handed brake without compromising rapid descent and emergency detachment from the rope in hostile environments. A team of Air Force Academy cadets were listed as named inventors for this technology on three patents awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. (Courtesy photo)
                
                Photo Details /
                        Download Hi-Res

Academy cadets’ invention to support battlefield Airmen awarded patentsPublished Aug. 5, 2019
                    
                    By Jennifer Spradlin
                    
                    
                    U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
            **U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AFNS) --**Looking for a challenge? Try coming up with 100 different ways to get a battlefield Airman loaded with gear from a hovering aircraft to the ground quickly and safely.
A team of Air Force Academy cadets took on this exact challenge while completing their mechanical and systems engineering degrees in 2016 and now their technology has been awarded three patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
The project was part of an annual Air Force Research Laboratory University Design Challenge. Each service academy and a dozen civilian universities for that iteration were charged to improve current troop insertion methods which primarily use the Fast Rope Insertion Extraction System.
There were two main issues: heavily loaded operators were struggling to brake when fast roping and their gloves were getting too hot from gripping the rope to slow down. To help get with the design requirements, cadets met with several groups of battlefield Airmen.
“This project taught me several things including that the process of creating something new is not linear, and you often have to go back to the drawing board, and the user is the most important customer,” said 1st Lt. Miranda Bray, a 2016 graduate and F-15E Strike Eagle student pilot at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina.
“As an aircrew member, I’ve seen so many examples of good and bad human factors engineering and the research we did for this project with the Air Force Special Operations Command operators and aircrew was what made this system stand out against the competition,” she said.
Through a purposeful narrowing of ideas and potential designs, the team settled on their approach: get rid of the rope. They decided to use existing auto belay technology for rock climbing and develop a system of supporting technology to suit an aircraft.
The Auto Belay Insertion System allows operators to engage a one-handed brake without compromising rapid descent and emergency detachment from the rope in hostile environments. Teams of two would descend from each side of the aircraft during each iteration. An additional benefit: crew chiefs no longer had to repeatedly recover a 300-pound rope during training scenarios.
It was the first time the auto belay technology had been designed for use aboard an aircraft, representing what Col. Cory Cooper, a permanent professor and head of the Academy’s mechanical engineering department, sees as the innovative mindset the Academy is developing in tomorrow’s lieutenants.
“We encourage our cadets in the capstone project to fail early and often and to celebrate failure, but to move past that failure, and come out the other side with a finished product that addresses the design challenge,” he said. “I’m really proud of the work by this team.”
The Center for Technology, Research and Commercialization, a non-profit organization that builds reciprocal relationships between government design agencies and commercial entities is currently looking for additional ways to use the patented technology, including for workers on oil rigs or cell phone towers.innovation 



patent 



Battlefield Airmen 



invention 



AF 



Air Force 



cadet 



US Patent and Trademark Office 



Engineer 



Seymour Johnson AFB 



Air Force Research Laboratory 



University Design Challenge 



Fast Rope Insertion Extraction System 



Auto Belay Insertion System 



US Air Force Academy Featured News
        Senior Leader Priorities
                SecAF, CSAF, CMSAF begin Indo-Pacific trip focused on ACE
                    
                    DAF leaders talk budget, reoptimizing the force
                    
                    DAF leaders speak at National Character and Leadership Symposium
                    
                    DAF members recognized during BEYA STEM awards
                    
                    DAF senior enlisted advisors discuss Airmen, Guardians in the fightInnovation
                F-16s arrive to be modified for autonomous testing
                    
                    AFWERX director discusses role of tech startups, quick innovation in Great Power Competition
                    
                    DAF delivers lethality at the speed of data during Project Convergence Capstone 4
                    
                    DAF welcomes industry partners to HQ development program
                    
                    DAF announces Spark Tank 2024 finalistsMAJCOM News
                Safety enterprise announces new mission, vision, goals in 2024 strategic plan
                    
                    Air Combat Command welcomes new commander
                    
                    USAFE-AFAFRICA commander discusses Integrated Air, Missile Defense during Munich Security Conference
                    
                    Flosi to AFMC family: Embrace change, make every day count
                    
                    AMC rises to increasing global tension
 Quick Links
AccessibilityContact UsEqual OpportunityFOIA | Privacy | Section 508Information QualityInspector GeneralJAG Court-Martial DocketLink DisclaimerNo FEAR ActOpen GovernmentOSI Tip LinePlain LanguageQuestionsResilienceRSSSite MapVeterans Crisis LineCareers
Join the Air ForceAir Force BenefitsAir Force CareersAir Force ReserveAir National GuardCivilian ServiceConnect
            Get Social with Us
            
            Official United States Air Force Website
    Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil