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NASA NTRS2021

Bowtie Analysis of the Effects of Unmanned Aircraft on Air Traffic Control

Within the aviation domain, there is a growing industry demand to develop and integrate remotely piloted operations into the National Airspace System. However, it is not yet well understood how the integration of unmanned aircraft with impact air traffic control, and specifically, the air traffic controllers who are at the sharp end of this safety critical system. This research presented in this paper aimed to begin to address this gap in understanding by identifying and exploring potential hazards associated with introducing Unmanned Aircraft into the national airspace system, and identify possible mitigations to reduce identified risks. A bowtie risk analysis methodology was used to identify and analyze hazards. A focus-group format discussion was conducted with nine subject matter experts as participants. Findings identified five areas of potential risk, each associated with multiple hazards. Mitigations for each hazard are reported. Findings have essential implications for the safe and efficient integration of unmanned aircraft into the national airspace.

unmanned aerial vehicles↗
NASA NTRS2017

Sense and Avoid for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems

The ability for small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) to safely operate beyond line of sight is of great interest to consumers, businesses, and scientific research. In this work, we investigate Sense and Avoid (SAA) algorithms for sUAS encounters using three 4k cameras for separation distances between 200m and 2000m. Video is recorded of different sUAS platforms designed to appear similar to expected air traffic, under varying weather conditions and flight encounter scenarios. University partners and NASA both developed SAA methods presented in this report.

Dolph, Chester V.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) Safely Enabling UAS Operations in Low-Altitude Airspace

Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) Enabling Civilian Low-Altitude Airspace and Unmanned Aircraft System Operations What is the problem? Many beneficial civilian applications of UAS have been proposed, from goods delivery and infrastructure surveillance, to search and rescue, and agricultural monitoring. Currently, there is no established infrastructure to enable and safely manage the widespread use of low-altitude airspace and UAS operations, regardless of the type of UAS. A UAS traffic management (UTM) system for low-altitude airspace may be needed, perhaps leveraging concepts from the system of roads, lanes, stop signs, rules and lights that govern vehicles on the ground today, whether the vehicles are driven by humans or are automated. What system technologies is NASA exploring? Building on its legacy of work in air traffic management for crewed aircraft, NASA is researching prototype technologies for a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system that could develop airspace integration requirements for enabling safe, efficient low-altitude operations. While incorporating lessons learned from the today's well-established air traffic management system, which was a response that grew out of a mid-air collision over the Grand Canyon in the early days of commercial aviation, the UTM system would enable safe and efficient low-altitude airspace operations by providing services such as airspace design, corridors, dynamic geofencing, severe weather and wind avoidance, congestion management, terrain avoidance, route planning and re-routing, separation management, sequencing and spacing, and contingency management. One of the attributes of the UTM system is that it would not require human operators to monitor every vehicle continuously. The system could provide to human managers the data to make strategic decisions related to initiation, continuation, and termination of airspace operations. This approach would ensure that only authenticated UAS could operate in the airspace. In its most mature form, the UTM system could be developed using autonomicity characteristics that include self-configuration, self-optimization and self-protection. The self-configuration aspect could determine whether the operations should continue given the current andor predicted windweather conditions. NASA envisions concepts for two types of possible UTM systems. The first type would be a Portable UTM system, which would move from between geographical areas and support operations such as precision agriculture and disaster relief. The second type of system would be a Persistent UTM system, which would support low-altitude operations and provide continuous coverage for a geographical area. Either system would require persistent communication, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) coverage to track, ensure, and monitor conformance. What is NASA doing to test the technologies? NASA's near-term goal is the development and demonstration of a possible future UTM system that could safely enable low-altitude airspace and UAS operations. Working alongside many committed government, industry and academic partners, NASA is leading the research, development and testing that is taking place in a series of activities called Technology Capability Levels (TCL), each increasing in complexity. UTM TCL1 concluded field testing in August 2015 and is undergoing additional testing at an FAA site.

UTM Low-altitude↗
NASA NTRS2016

Progress on Modular Unmanned Aircraft Technology

Modular unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are a new development in UAS architecture that holds promise for reusable, reconfigurable hosts for science and autonomy payloads. Modularity of airframe subcomponents lowers costs, facilitates rapid field repair, permits holistic optimization, and enables mass-customization of bespoke platforms customizing the aircraft around a given payload or payloads. Without modular UAS, sensors and instruments often must be designed to fit in a non-modifiable airframe. This talk will present how the nexus of modularity, rapid prototyping and design reuse opens up new tradeoffs, and discuss the envisioned benefits, price paid, and enhanced missions made possible by this new approach to aircraft development.

Dahlgren, Robert P.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Weathering the Storm: Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the Maritime, Atmospheric and Polar Environments

Unmanned systems have the potential to efficiently, effectively, economically, and safely bridge critical observation requirements in an environmentally friendly manner. As the United States Atmospheric, Marine and Arctic areas of interest expand and include hard-to-reach regions of the Earth (such as the Arctic and remote oceanic areas) optimizing unmanned capabilities will be needed to advance the United States science, technology and security efforts. Through increased multi-mission and multi-agency operations using improved inter-operable and autonomous unmanned systems, the research and operations communities will better collect environmental intelligence and better protect our country against hazardous weather, environmental, marine and polar hazards. This presentation will examine UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) operations which includes developing a coordinated effort to maximize the efficiency and capabilities of unmanned systems across the federal government and research partners. Numerous intra- and inter-agency operational demonstrations and assessments have been made to verify and validated these UAS observations. The NASA-specific elements will consist of an overview of NASA UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) available to science and recent missions.

Atmospheric↗
NASA NTRS2021

Bell Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) Demonstration: Final Report, Summary of Research

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) initiated the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration and Operationalization (SIO) demonstration as a partnership between NASA and Industry with the goal of accelerating routine unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations in the national airspace (NAS). In order to accomplish this goal, NASA partnered separately with Bell and two other industry teams each pioneering the development, integration, and testing of their UAS, with the intent to make progress towards type certification. The program culminated in flight demonstrations representing future commercial operations by each partner.

Flight Demonstration↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Bowtie Analysis of the Effects of Unmanned Aircraft on Air Traffic Control

Within the aviation domain, there is a growing industry demand to develop and integrate remotely piloted operations into the National Airspace System. However, it is not yet well understood how the integration of unmanned aircraft with impact air traffic control, and specifically, the air traffic controllers who are at the sharp end of this safety critical system. This research presented in this paper aimed to begin to address this gap in understanding by identifying and exploring potential hazards associated with introducing Unmanned Aircraft into the national airspace system, and identify possible mitigations to reduce identified risks. A bowtie risk analysis methodology was used to identify and analyze hazards. A focus-group format discussion was conducted with nine subject matter experts as participants. Findings identified five areas of potential risk, each associated with multiple hazards. Mitigations for each hazard are reported. Findings have essential implications for the safe and efficient integration of unmanned aircraft into the national airspace.

Tamsyn Edwards↗
NASA NTRS2009

Ikhana: Unmanned Aircraft System Western States Fire Missions. Monographs in Aerospace History, Number 44

In 2006, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., obtained a civil version of the General Atomics MQ-9 unmanned aircraft system and modified it for research purposes. Proposed missions included support of Earth science research, development of advanced aeronautical technology, and improving the utility of unmanned aerial systems in general. The project team named the aircraft Ikhana a Native American Choctaw word meaning intelligent, conscious, or aware in order to best represent NASA research goals. Building on experience with these and other unmanned aircraft, NASA scientists developed plans to use the Ikhana for a series of missions to map wildfires in the western United States and supply the resulting data to firefighters in near-real time. A team at NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., developed a multispectral scanner that was key to the success of what became known as the Western States Fire Missions. Carried out by team members from NASA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, National Interagency Fire Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Aviation Administration, and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., these flights represented an historic achievement in the field of unmanned aircraft technology.

Western States fire missions↗
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 NTRS2006

Frequency Allocations for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the National Airspace. Access 5 White Paper to the WRC Advisory Committee

A critical aspect of the Access 5 program is identifying appropriate spectrum for civil and commercial purposes. However, currently, there is no spectrum allocated for the command/control link between the aircraft control station and the unmanned aircraft. Until such frequency spectrum is allocated and approved, it will be difficult for the UAS community to obtain civil airworthiness certification and operate in the NAS on a routine basis. This document provides a perspective from the UAS community on Agenda Items being considered for the upcoming World Radiocommunication Conference 2007 (WRC 07). Primarily, it supports the proposal to add Aeronautical Mobile (Route) Services (AM(R)S) to existing bands that could be used for UAS Line-of-Sight operations. It also recommends the need to identify spectrum that could be used for an Aeronautical Mobile Satellite (Route) Service (AMS(R)S) that would allow UAS to operate Beyond Line-of-Sight. If spectrum is made available to provide these services, it will then be incumbent upon the UAS community to justify their use of this spectrum as well as the assurance that they will not interfere with other users of this newly allocated spectrum.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2017

Initial Study of an Effective Fast-Time Simulation Platform for Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management

Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs), typically 55 lbs and below, are envisioned to play a major role in surveilling critical assets, collecting important information, and delivering goods. Large scale small UAV operations are expected to happen in low altitude airspace in the near future. Many static and dynamic constraints exist in low altitude airspace because of manned aircraft or helicopter activities, various wind conditions, restricted airspace, terrain and man-made buildings, and conflict-avoidance among sUAVs. High sensitivity and high maneuverability are unique characteristics of sUAVs that bring challenges to effective system evaluations and mandate such a simulation platform different from existing simulations that were built for manned air traffic system and large unmanned fixed aircraft. NASA's Unmanned aircraft system Traffic Management (UTM) research initiative focuses on enabling safe and efficient sUAV operations in the future. In order to help define requirements and policies for a safe and efficient UTM system to accommodate a large amount of sUAV operations, it is necessary to develop a fast-time simulation platform that can effectively evaluate requirements, policies, and concepts in a close-to-reality environment. This work analyzed the impacts of some key factors including aforementioned sUAV's characteristics and demonstrated the importance of these factors in a successful UTM fast-time simulation platform.

UTM↗
NASA NTRS2017

Initial Study of An Effective Fast-Time Simulation Platform for Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management

Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs), typically 55 lbs and below, are envisioned to play a major role in surveilling critical assets, collecting important information, and delivering goods. Large scale small UAV operations are expected to happen in low altitude airspace in the near future. Many static and dynamic constraints exist in low altitude airspace because of manned aircraft or helicopter activities, various wind conditions, restricted airspace, terrain and man-made buildings, and conflict-avoidance among sUAVs. High sensitivity and high maneuverability are unique characteristics of sUAVs that bring challenges to effective system evaluations and mandate such a simulation platform different from existing simulations that were built for manned air traffic system and large unmanned fixed aircraft. NASA's Unmanned aircraft system Traffic Management (UTM) research initiative focuses on enabling safe and efficient sUAV operations in the future. In order to help define requirements and policies for a safe and efficient UTM system to accommodate a large amount of sUAV operations, it is necessary to develop a fast-time simulation platform that can effectively evaluate requirements, policies, and concepts in a close-to-reality environment. This work analyzed the impacts of some key factors including aforementioned sUAV's characteristics and demonstrated the importance of these factors in a successful UTM fast-time simulation platform.

UTM↗
NASA NTRS2019

In-Time Non-Participant Casualty Risk Assessment to Support Onboard Decision Making for Autonomous Unmanned Aircraft

Numerous operational paradigms, technologies, and missions are emerging as newcomers to the National Airspace System (NAS) develop small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS), personal air vehicles and other Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concepts. As the list of applications expands, maintaining the safety of the current airspace system remains one of the core concerns preventing widespread commercial implementation of these concepts. Further, the risks associated with unmanned aircraft operations themselves have to be recognized and mitigated in a timely manner. Safety-critical risks include, but are not limited to, flight outside of approved airspace, unsafe proximity to people or property, critical system failures, loss-of control, and cyber-security related risks. Instead of reacting to accidents, a set of predictive and data-driven risk monitoring, assessment, and mitigation capabilities are envisioned to help capture and eliminate hazards as these systems become operational. NASA’s System-wide Safety project is performing R&D on such a safety assurance concept. As part of this concept, this paper describes an architecture that continuously monitors a diverse set of onboard and ground-based sources to estimate and predict non-participant casualty risk during flight. Timely identification of the changing nature of this risk can inform decision making processes to mitigate current and impending situations.

Ancel, Ersin↗
NASA NTRS2014

Exploration of the Trade Space Between Unmanned Aircraft Systems Descent Maneuver Performance and Sense-and-Avoid System Performance Requirements

A need exists to safely integrate Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the United States' National Airspace System. Replacing manned aircraft's see-and-avoid capability in the absence of an onboard pilot is one of the key challenges associated with safe integration. Sense-and-avoid (SAA) systems will have to achieve yet-to-be-determined required separation distances for a wide range of encounters. They will also need to account for the maneuver performance of the UAS they are paired with. The work described in this paper is aimed at developing an understanding of the trade space between UAS maneuver performance and SAA system performance requirements, focusing on a descent avoidance maneuver. An assessment of current manned and unmanned aircraft performance was used to establish potential UAS performance test matrix bounds. Then, near-term UAS integration work was used to narrow down the scope. A simulator was developed with sufficient fidelity to assess SAA system performance requirements. The simulator generates closest-point-of-approach (CPA) data from the wide range of UAS performance models maneuvering against a single intruder with various encounter geometries. Initial attempts to model the results made it clear that developing maneuver performance groups is required. Discussion of the performance groups developed and how to know in which group an aircraft belongs for a given flight condition and encounter is included. The groups are airplane, flight condition, and encounter specific, rather than airplane-only specific. Results and methodology for developing UAS maneuver performance requirements are presented for a descent avoidance maneuver. Results for the descent maneuver indicate that a minimum specific excess power magnitude can assure a minimum CPA for a given time-to-go prediction. However, smaller amounts of specific excess power may achieve or exceed the same CPA if the UAS has sufficient speed to trade for altitude. The results of this study will support UAS maneuver performance requirements development for integrating UAS in the NAS. The methods described are being used to help RTCA Special Committee 228 develop requirements.

Jack, Devin P.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Communications Technology Assessment for the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Control and Non-Payload Communications (CNPC) Link

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) is performing communications systems research for the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project. One of the goals of the communications element is to select and test a communications technology for the UAS Control and Non-Payload Communications (CNPC) link. The GRC UAS Modeling and Simulation (M/S) Sub Team will evaluate the performance of several potential technologies for the CNPC link through detailed software simulations. In parallel, an industry partner will implement a technology in hardware to be used for flight testing. The task necessitated a technical assessment of existing Radio Frequency (RF) communications technologies to identify the best candidate systems for use as the UAS CNPC link. The assessment provides a basis for selecting the technologies for the M/S effort and the hardware radio design. The process developed for the technical assessments for the Future Communications Study1 (FCS) was used as an initial starting point for this assessment. The FCS is a joint Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Eurocontrol study on technologies for use as a future aeronautical communications link. The FCS technology assessment process methodology can be applied to the UAS CNPC link; however the findings of the FCS are not directly applicable because of different requirements between a CNPC link and a general aeronautical data link. Additional technologies were added to the potential technologies list from the State of the Art Unmanned Aircraft System Communication Assessment developed by NASA GRC2. This document investigates the state of the art of communications as related to UAS. A portion of the document examines potential communications systems for a UAS communication architecture. Like the FCS, the state of the art assessment surveyed existing communications technologies. It did not, however, perform a detailed assessment of the technology necessary to recommend a technology for the UAS CNPC link. The technical assessment process, as shown in Figure 1, consists of the following steps. First, candidate RF communications technologies are identified. An initial review of each of these technologies is then performed to determine if the technology appears to be a good candidate and requires further review. Any technology that can be shown to be inadequate at that point is removed from consideration to allow for more detailed analysis of the remaining technologies. Criteria for the detailed assessments are defined and a scoring methodology is devised. This is followed by the detailed review and scoring of each technology. The least favorable technologies are removed during the process until only the few best candidates remain.

Aircraft Command and Control↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Formal Methods in the Development of Highly Assured Software for Unmanned Aircraft Systems

In traditional software development methodologies, operational and functional requirements of systems are often specified in structured natural language notations. These restricted notations provide good documentation support, but only provide limited support for semantic analysis. These notations are generally not rich enough to unambiguously specify the requirements of safety-critical systems that, for example, involve complex numerical computations or that interact with the physical environment. Examples of these safety-critical systems are autonomous vehicles such as unmanned aircraft systems. This talk advocates the use of expressive formal logics, such as higher-order logic, to specify the operational and functional requirement of unmanned systems and to prove the correctness of these requirements. Semantic analysis of requirements written in higher-order logic is supported through the use of interactive theorem provers. Formal models serve as ideal reference implementations of functional requirements. Hence, formal logics enable software validation techniques where software implementations can be checked against functional requirements in a mechanical way. The Formal Methods group in the Safety-Critical Avionics Systems Branch at NASA Langley Research Center has conducted research on the development and application of formal verification techniques to safety-critical applications of interest to NASA for more than 30 years. This talk illustrates the use of formal methods in the development of highly-assured autonomous unmanned aircraft systems.

Formal Methods↗
NASA NTRS2018

Small Unmanned Aircraft Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Initial Assessment

With many applications envisioned for small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS), and potentially millions of sUAS expected to be in operation in the future, the electromagnetic interference environment associated with the sUAS is of interest to understanding the potential performance impacts on the sUAS command and control communications link as well as the sUAS payload and payload links. As part of NASA's UAS Traffic Management (UTM) Project, flight experiments are planned to characterize the RF environment at altitudes up to 400 ft to better understand how UTM command and control links can be expected to perform. The flight experiments will use an RF channel sensing payload attached to an sUAS. In terms of the payload being capable of measuring relatively low level signals at altitude, electromagnetic interference (EMI) emanating from the sUAS vehicle itself could potentially complicate the measurement process. For this reason, NASA was interested in measuring the EMI performance of the sUAS planned for these flight experiments, a DJI model S1000. The S1000 was thus measured in a controlled EMI test chamber at the NASA Ames Research Center. The S1000 is a carbon fiber based platform with eight rotors. As such, the EMI test results represent potential performance of a number of similar sUAS types. sUAS platforms significantly different from the S1000 may also require EMI testing, and the method employed for NASA's S1000 EMI tests can be applied to other platforms. In this paper we describe the UTM project, the RF channel sensing payload, the EMI testing method and EMI test results for the S1000, and discuss the implications of these results.

Unmanned aircraft↗