Why make a helicopter winch a patient when you could land?
In this evolving era of robotics, could a landing pad be designed with a robotic arm that reaches up and assists a helicopter to land. This would only be needed in rough weather but it would give that extra security needed to land a helicopter in rough seas.
I was thinking if the helicopter is ranging three dimensionally 5m and the ship is listing 30 or 40 degrees, this is a tall order. If a robotic arm is strong enough to lift and swing around a helicopter, imagine a helicopter on the end of a Hiab arm, then a quick coupler, at the best balance point on the chopper, can used to reel in the aircraft with a robotic arm.
I know it is easy to imagine, scifi wise, but robotics are playing ball games so this isn't too far off. Just a few magnitudes of scale in speed and mass.
Of course taking off is the easy part. You does want to be thrown in the air?-- wjt, Apr 08 2017 Guinness World Records: Strongest robot arm http://www.guinness...strongest-robot-arm1.119 Mg capacity. Six-axis. Still accurate as of 2017 AFAICT. [notexactly, Apr 09 2017] Giant robot arm ship to ship helicopter tennis-- pocmloc, Apr 09 2017 //..tennis// Sp: badminton. The rotors (powered or not) will affect the path from one t'other.-- neutrinos_shadow, Apr 09 2017 This sort of technology application, wharves, spacestations, shopping trolley stations, is going to needed fast positional analysis as well as quick, accurate strength movement, as [neutrinos shadow] pointed out.
Some sort of segmented pole to side-step rotor blades seems advisable.-- wjt, Apr 10 2017 (+) ..\ ...\_-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 10 2017 random, halfbakery