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At least 307 records · Page 17
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2014

“Terrain, Terrain Pull-up!” Air Carrier Controlled Flight Toward Terrain Incidents Reported to the NASA ASRS

The Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) in a partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), participating carriers, and labor organizations. It is designed to improve the National Airspace System by collecting and studying reports detailing unsafe conditions and events in the aviation industry. Employees are able to report safety issues or concerns with confidentiality and without fear of discipline. Safety reports highlighting controlled flight toward terrain incidents as reported to the NASA ASRS.

confidential reporting↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Blockchain Case Study for Urban Air Mobility Operational Intent

The next generation of aerial passenger and cargo transportation may leverage the concept of Urban Air Mobility (UAM). UAM is a concept that proposes to develop short-range, point-to-point transportation systems in metropolitan areas using vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) or short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft to overcome increasing surface congestion [1]. The UAM concept leverages a decentralized service-based architecture for airspace solutions. Within the environment, UAM operators work collaboratively to manage aerial vehicles in the urban environment. Providers of Services for UAM (PSU), UAM operators, and Supplemental Data Service Providers (SDSP) provide services to support flight operations within the UAM environment. Also, various views of UAM flight information are provided to the public and public safety entities [2]. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can coordinate flight information between the FAA controlled National Airspace System (NAS) and the UAM environments through the FAA-Industry Data Exchange Protocol (FIDXP). To realize the potential of UAM, an assurance of cybersecurity is critical for public acceptance. Cybersecurity has come to the forefront highlighting the need to protect these networks and systems from cyberattacks. The growth in the development of UAM systems, and the associated data exchange and service interactions will be at risk due to numerous types of cybersecurity attacks. As these threats evolve, the UAM cybersecurity capabilities must adapt to these changes as well [3]. This research focuses on the secure data exchange and storage of this decentralized UAM environment to address these challenges. This research intends to leverage a permissioned blockchain approach to address cybersecurity threats that may impact a UAM environment. Blockchain technologies can be used for tracking transactions and verifying negotiated agreements between stakeholders in the NAS environment. For example, the record of the submitted flight plan and the approved flight plan could be verified using the Blockchain-based immutable ledger.

UAM↗
NASA NTRS2010

Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Integrated Systems Research Program (ISRP) and UAS Integration in the NAS Project

Program Goal: Conduct research at an integrated system-level on promising concepts and technologies and explore, assess, or demonstrate the benefits in a relevant environment.Criteria for selection of projects for Integrated Systems Research: a) Technology has attained enough maturity in the foundational research program that they merit more in-depth evaluation at an integrated system level in a relevant environment. b) Technologies which systems analysis indicates have the most potential for contributing to the simultaneous attainment of goals. c) Technologies identified through stakeholder input as having potential for simultaneous attainment of goals. d) Research not being done by other government agencies and appropriate for NASA to conduct. e) Budget augmentation. Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project Explore and assess new vehicle concepts and enabling technologies through system-level experimentation to simultaneously reduce fuel burn, noise, and emissions Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project Contribute capabilities that reduce technical barriers related to the safety and operational challenges associated with enabling routine UAS access to the NAS Innovative Concepts for Green Aviation (ICGA) Project Spur innovation by offering research opportunities to the broader aeronautics community through peer-reviewed proposals, with a focus on making aviation more eco-friendly. Establish incentive prizes similar to the Centennial Challenges and sponsor innovation demonstrations of selected technologies that show promise of reducing aviation s impact on the environment

Wolfe, Jean↗
NASA NTRS2016

Flight Test Overview for UAS Integration in the NAS Project

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is conducting a series of flight tests intended to support the reduction of barriers that prevent unmanned aircraft from flying without the required waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration. The most recent testing supported two separate test configurations. The first investigated the timing of Detect and Avoid (DAA) alerting thresholds using a radar-equipped unmanned vehicle and multiple live intruders flown at varying encounter geometries. The second configuration included a surrogate unmanned vehicle (flown from a ground control station, with a safety pilot on board) flying a mission in a virtual air traffic control airspace sector using research pilot displays and DAA advisories to maintain separation from live and virtual aircraft. The test was conducted over a seven-week span in the summer of 2015. The data from over 100 encounter sorties will be used to inform the RTCA Phase 1 Detect and Avoid and Command and Control Minimum Operating Performance Standards (MOPS) intended to be completed by the summer of 2016. Follow-on flight-testing is planned for the spring of 2016 to capture remaining encounters and support validation of the MOPS.

UAS↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

3D Representation of UAV-obstacle Collision Risk Under Off-nominal Conditions

Safe operations of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in low-altitude airspace with beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flights demand robust risk monitoring of airspace as well as of people and property on ground. One of the safety critical factors for UAV flights is the risk of collision with static and dynamic obstacles in proximity to its flight path. This paper presents a detailed formulation of risk of obstacle collision incorporating the effects of off-nominal conditions introduced by component failures, degraded controllability and environmental disturbances such as wind gusts. The risk is represented in terms of a matrix with rows corresponding to the likelihood of occurrence of collision and columns representing severity of collision to the vehicle and surrounding structures. Risk likelihood is generated using a Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) that compiles knowledge from related Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEAs) and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to determine the probability of collision based on on-board sensor measurements indicative of vehicle health and controllability. Risk severity is computed utilizing a point-mass 3D kinematic model of the vehicle in presence of wind. The proposed risk factor is demonstrated on real flight data from experimental flights of an octocopter at NASA Langley Research Center in presence of simulated obstacles and wind conditions. Effect of varying wind conditions, level of controllability and obstacle measurement noise on the risk factor is demonstrated. The proposed approach enables risk-informed decision making for timely mitigation of current and future unsafe events in autonomous systems.

risk analysis↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

3D Representation of UAV-obstacle Collision Risk under off-nominal conditions

Safe operations of autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in low-altitude airspace with beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flights demand robust risk monitoring of airspace as well as of people and property on ground. One of the safety critical factors for UAV flights is the risk of collision with static and dynamic obstacles in proximity to its flight path. This paper presents a detailed formulation of risk likelihood of obstacle collision incorporating the effects of off-nominal conditions introduced by component failures, degraded controllability and environmental disturbances such as wind gusts. The deviation in the planned trajectory caused due to wind is computed utilizing a point-mass 3D kinematic simulation model of the vehicle. Likelihood of risk for the flight plan is then analyzed based on generating the probability of collision for each point in the trajectory. The proposed risk factor is demonstrated on real flight data from experimental flights of an octocopter at NASA Langley Research Center in presence of simulated obstacles and wind conditions. Effect of varying wind conditions, distance from obstacles, level of controllability and obstacle measurement noise on the risk factor is demonstrated. The proposed approach enables risk-informed decision making for timely mitigation of current and future unsafe events in autonomous systems.

Portia Banerjee↗
NASA NTRS2015

Cubesat Constellation Design for Air Traffic Monitoring

Suitably equipped global and local air traffic can be tracked. The tracking information may then be used for control from ground-based stations by receiving the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) signal. The ADS-B signal, emitted from the aircraft's Mode-S transponder, is currently tracked by terrestrial based receivers but not over remote oceans or sparsely populated regions such as Alaska or the Pacific Ocean. Lack of real-time aircraft time/location information in remote areas significantly hinders optimal planning and control because bigger "safety bubbles" (lateral and vertical separation) are required around the aircraft until they reach radar-controlled airspace. Moreover, it presents a search-and-rescue bottleneck. Aircraft in distress, e.g. Air France AF449 that crashed in 2009, take days to be located or cannot be located at all, e.g. Malaysia Airlines MH370 in 2014. In this paper, we describe a tool for designing a constellation of small satellites which demonstrates, through high-fidelity modeling based on simulated air traffic data, the value of space-based ADS-B monitoring and provides recommendations for cost-efficient deployment of a constellation of small satellites to increase safety and situational awareness in the currently poorly-served surveillance area of Alaska. Air traffic data has been obtained from the Future ATM Concepts Evaluation Tool (FACET), developed at NASA Ames Research Center, simulated over the Alaskan airspace over a period of one day. The simulation is driven by MATLAB with satellites propagated and coverage calculated using AGI's Satellite ToolKit(STK10).

cubesats↗
NASA NTRS2022

Applicability of Digital Flight to the Operations of Self-Piloted Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the National Airspace System

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) hold great promise for a new era of specialized missions, including personal air transportation, cargo flight operations, aerial surveys, inspections, firefighting and more. The anticipated market growth is significant. To unlock its scalability and incumbent benefits requires a human to oversee multiple flights simultaneously, focusing on multi-vehicle mission management and relinquishing to autonomous systems their active role in controlling the aircrafts’ flight paths. Key to the realization of these scalability benefits is minimally-encumbered access to the National Airspace System (NAS), which poses some unique challenges for self-piloted UAS aircraft operations. These include the requirement for compatibility with existing airspace structures and operations including Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR), neither of which were developed to accommodate the unique needs and capabilities of UAS. This paper explores the applicability of Digital Flight to the operations of self-piloted UAS. As proposed by NASA, Digital Flight is a flight operations capability, enabled by a set of cooperative procedures and digital technologies, in which flight operators ensure flight-path safety through automated separation and flight path management in lieu of visual procedures and Air Traffic Control separation services. Flights operating under potentially-forthcoming rules of Digital Flight employ advanced automation technologies, information sharing, connectivity to operational data, and cooperative behaviors through distributed decision-making to maintain safety and achieve mission objectives. Designed for integration with VFR and IFR operations in shared NAS airspace, potentially as a third set of flight rules, Digital Flight may provide the mechanism for UAS operators – and all aircraft operators – to scale and diversify their operations beyond what is achievable under current regulations.

DFR↗
NASA NTRS2024

Survey of Methods for Assessing Safety Compliance of sUAS BVLOS Operations

To ensure the safety of small Unmanned Aircraft System (sUAS) Beyond Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations in the National Airspace System (NAS), the FAA offers a guideline on how sUAS operators can demonstrate compliance with FAA rules, including regulations, advisory circulars, policy statements, and acceptable means of compliance (AMOC), using a formal and top-down approach. According to FAA Advisory Circular 23.2010-1, the AMOC refers to “one method, but not the only method, to show compliance with a regulatory requirement.” It is common for regulations to include a performance and safety standard rather than a detailed design or operation requirement, which allows for flexibility in fulfilling the regulatory requirements while still achieving a predetermined level of safety. This technical report explores existing frameworks for sUAS BVLOS safety analysis. It begins by discussing how sUAS BVLOS operations can be strategically deconflicted and then discusses their hazards. The next step is to establish safety assessment methods commonly used by the aviation industry and the FAA, illustrate how these methods can be applied to several safety-critical air traffic systems, and list collision models that the FAA and industry use. This investigation documents the processes for assessing safety risks in sUAS BVLOS operations and will allow sUAS BVLOS operations to be assessed for safety compliance more efficiently.

sUAS BVLOS Operations↗
NASA NTRS2014

Aviation Safety Risk Modeling: Lessons Learned From Multiple Knowledge Elicitation Sessions

Aviation safety risk modeling has elements of both art and science. In a complex domain, such as the National Airspace System (NAS), it is essential that knowledge elicitation (KE) sessions with domain experts be performed to facilitate the making of plausible inferences about the possible impacts of future technologies and procedures. This study discusses lessons learned throughout the multiple KE sessions held with domain experts to construct probabilistic safety risk models for a Loss of Control Accident Framework (LOCAF), FLightdeck Automation Problems (FLAP), and Runway Incursion (RI) mishap scenarios. The intent of these safety risk models is to support a portfolio analysis of NASA's Aviation Safety Program (AvSP). These models use the flexible, probabilistic approach of Bayesian Belief Networks (BBNs) and influence diagrams to model the complex interactions of aviation system risk factors. Each KE session had a different set of experts with diverse expertise, such as pilot, air traffic controller, certification, and/or human factors knowledge that was elicited to construct a composite, systems-level risk model. There were numerous "lessons learned" from these KE sessions that deal with behavioral aggregation, conditional probability modeling, object-oriented construction, interpretation of the safety risk results, and model verification/validation that are presented in this paper.

Luxhoj, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS1973

General aviation air traffic pattern safety analysis

A concept is described for evaluating the general aviation mid-air collision hazard in uncontrolled terminal airspace. Three-dimensional traffic pattern measurements were conducted at uncontrolled and controlled airports. Computer programs for data reduction, storage retrieval and statistical analysis have been developed. Initial general aviation air traffic pattern characteristics are presented. These preliminary results indicate that patterns are highly divergent from the expected standard pattern, and that pattern procedures observed can affect the ability of pilots to see and avoid each other.

Parker, L. C.↗
NASA NTRS1997

NASA Advanced Transportation Technologies Program

The primary objective of the NASA Advanced Air Transportation Technologies (AATT) program is to fully explore the possibilities of the "Free Flight" concept. AVIATION products will enable substantial increases in the effectiveness of national and global air transportation systems. These increases will be achieved by developing and testing automation aids that can assist in the decision-making process among pilots, air traffic controllers, and dispatchers. The AATT program is responsible for defining, exploring, and developing advanced air traffic system concepts to a level suitable for preproduction prototype assessment by the FAA which, if successful, will result in full-scale deployment. These decision support tools will allow all airspace users to choose the best flight path for their own purpose within the constraints of safety and the needs of other users. To do this, several goals must be met: allow users to minimize operating costs by making trade-offs between time and routing; improve the effectiveness of high-density operations on the ground and in the air, enable safe operation in a smooth and efficient manner across boundaries of free-flight and capacity-constrained flight regions; provide system improvements that are easily deployable anywhere in the world; and improve the ability to simulate advanced capabilities in the airspace system.

Dudley, Michael R.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Identification of Safety Metrics for Airport Surface Operations

A large fraction of safety incidents occurs on the ground during airport surface operations. Although these incidents are mostly non-fatal with a few exceptions, they are high profile incidents that remain a source of concern for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), major airlines, and other stakeholders of the National Airspace System (NAS). These incidents have historically been mitigated by implementing changes to regulations, policies, and procedures over time. This approach has minimized but not eliminated the risk of occurrences. It is thus important to develop integrated techniques to assess, model, and prevent these incidents by analyzing the risk and likelihood of occurrence and communicating results of the analysis to decision-making personnel who can mitigate and prevent incidents in real time. The research presented in this report builds on prior work of researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center who developed an automated framework, Real-Time Safety Monitoring (RTSM), to enable monitoring and prediction of the safety of the NAS. In the RTSM framework, hazards to flight are translated to safety metrics such as wake vortex encounters or loss of separation, that can be modeled and analyzed offline and also predicted and monitored in real time (online). The intent of this report is to integrate predictable incidents that occur during surface and ground operations into the safety portfolio of the RTSM project by (i) identifying suitable information sources from which ground incidents can be studied, (ii) developing safety metrics correlated with surface operations, and (iii) recommending suitable data sources that can be quantified and used for the computation of pertinent safety metrics.

ground operations↗
NASA NTRS2010

Airspace Systems Program: Next Generation Air Transportation System, NextGen Systems Analysis, Integration and Evaluation Project: Project Plan - Version 1.0

The key objectives of the NASA ASP are to: Improve mobility, capacity efficiency and access of the airspace system. Improve collaboration, predictability, and flexibility for the airspace users. Enable accurate modeling and simulation of air transportation systems. Accommodate operations of all classes of aircraft. Maintain system safety and environmental protection. In support of these program objectives, the major goal of the NextGen-SAIE Project is to enable the transition of key capacity and efficiency improvements to the NAS. Since many aspects of the NAS are unique to specific airport or airspace environments, demand on various parts of the NAS is not expected to increase equally as system demand grows. SAIE will provide systems level analysis of the NAS characteristics, constraints, and demands such that a suite of capacity-increasing concepts and technologies for system solutions are enabled and facilitated. The technical objectives in support of this goal are the following: Integration, evaluation, and transition of more mature concepts and technologies in an environment that faithfully emulates real-world complexities. Interoperability research and analysis of ASP technologies across ATM functions is performed to facilitate integration and take ASP concepts and technologies to higher Technology Readiness Level (TRL). Analyses are conducted on the program s concepts to identify the system benefits or impacts. System level analysis is conducted to increase understanding of the characteristics and constraints of airspace system and its domains.

Quon, Leighton↗
NASA NTRS2016

Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the National Airspace System: A Formal Methods Perspective

As the technological and operational capabilities of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have grown, so too have international efforts to integrate UAS into civil airspace. However, one of the major concerns that must be addressed in realizing this integration is that of safety. For example, UAS lack an on-board pilot to comply with the legal requirement that pilots see and avoid other aircraft. This requirement has motivated the development of a detect and avoid (DAA) capability for UAS that provides situational awareness and maneuver guidance to UAS operators to aid them in avoiding and remaining well clear of other aircraft in the airspace. The NASA Langley Research Center Formal Methods group has played a fundamental role in the development of this capability. This article gives a selected survey of the formal methods work conducted in support of the development of a DAA concept for UAS. This work includes specification of low-level and high-level functional requirements, formal verification of algorithms, and rigorous validation of software implementations.

Munoz, Cesar A.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Separation Assurance and Collision Avoidance

Objective SACA-1: Determine the level of safety provided by tactical separation assurance safety monitoring systems for UAS missions. a) Rationale: Continuous mission-risk monitoring can provide equivalent levels of safety for UAS operations possibly reducing the burden on other safety systems. b) Approach: Utilize and adapt algorithms and approaches developed for the NextGen Airspace Systems Program for UAS applications.

Lauderdale, Todd↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Fault Detection and Performance Monitoring of Propellers in Electric UAV

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are used in various industries such as agriculture and logistics, to name but a few, where their applications are beyond basic mapping, surveillance, and photography. In near future, UAVs are expected to be used in package delivery service and larger electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles will be employed for urban air mobility applications (air taxi). Thus, several electric propulsion systems will enter the low-altitude airspace with frequent take offs and landings. To achieve state-of-the-art safety standards under such high traffic density, UAVs will require in-time fault detection and performance monitoring of critical powertrain components. This work focuses on propeller blade performance and damage detection in electric UAVs. Propellers are the fastest moving component in an UAV; even a minor defect in the propeller blades could cause performance deterioration, with consequent challenges in flying through the planned trajectory or adhere to the safety requirements of the operation. Monitoring and updating aerodynamic efficiency of each rotor would therefore enable the detection of off-nominal propeller conditions thus magnifying the state-awareness of powertrain monitoring systems based on the acquired electrical signals. We use an extended Kalman filter-based parameter estimation algorithm that incorporates time history responses from UAV powertrain in conjunction with a full powertrain system model. Propeller fault detection is achieved by incorporating the aerodynamic parameters of propeller into the powertrain model. The proposed technique is successfully validated with numerical simulations.

Unmanned aerial vehicles↗
NASA NTRS2022

Complex Autonomous Systems Assurance (CASA)

NASA’s System-Wide Safety project seeks to explore, understand, and overcome technical challenges associated with assuring the safety of future aviation operations. CASA is prototyping a process for the inclusion of untrusted (including machine-learning-enabled & autonomous) components in emerging aerospace systems. CASA enables increasingly effective paths to safety assurance of complex and autonomous systems through the development of certification processes for airspace systems with untrusted components

Kyle Kent Edward Ellis↗