Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Kopardekar, Parimal.
Opportunities in Aerospace for airspace management and aerospace manufacturing as more aircraft for new operations and automation are developed and introduced into the national airspace. This presentation is meant to inspire student aspirations and entrance into the aerospace industry.
Aerospace supply chain and high volume manufacturing needed to achieve Urban Air Mobility (UAM).
Best practices, information management, uncertified unmanned aircraft, rules of the air for operations above FL600 (high elevation).
What is needed, on a regional level, to prepare for future urban air mobility operations in terms of airspace management, infrastructure, community, and aircraft.
An update on urban air mobility in context of supply management and where research indicates trends and needs.
Overview of workshop goals and expected outcomes from breakout sessions which are going to discuss research needs and strategy for enabling autonomous operations for small unmanned aircraft systems and medium urban air mobility vehicles.
The talk will cover various research and development challenges and opportunities related to enabling autonomous flight and airspace operations. Particularly, it will address the needs and importance for enabling autonomous operations, various technical challenges and opportunities, and minimum viable product strategy.
Space is becoming increasingly congested as the number of on-orbit satellites and debris objects continues to grow. Space traffic management (STM) is critical for ensuring that the expanding orbital population operates safely and efficiently, avoiding collisions and radio-frequency interference while still facilitating widespread space operations. Recent events such as the FCC approval of SpaceX’s ~12,000 satellite constellation, the signing of Space Policy Directive 3 (which moves Space Situational Awareness responsibilities away from the Department of Defense and to a civil agency), and the growth in rideshare and small launch vehicles illustrate the rapidly changing nature of this domain. This paper will describe the concept of operations (ConOps) for a civilian STM research initiative, which has been developed from previous NASA work to enable safe operation of small unmanned aircraft systems. The STM ConOps proposes an architecture to enable efficient data sharing and coordination between participants to facilitate safe spaceflight operations. It is designed to utilize and promote the emerging field of commercial STM services, as a complement to existing government-provided STM services. The concept envisions a phased evolution that would gradually integrate additional capabilities, proposing a first phase architecture and tentative plans for a broader system. Work towards developing an STM research and prototyping platform is also discussed.
Emerging markets for drones and urban air mobility are going to impact the airspace operations environment. Changes to the current system is necessary to enable new innovations without compromising safety. This presentation discusses how a UTM-inspired air traffic management system can address these needs.
Overview of UTM and UAM at NASA
This paper proposes an initial architecture for a Space Traffic Management (STM) system, based on openApplication Programming Interfaces (APIs) and drawing on previous work by the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) to develop an architecture for low-altitude Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management (UTM). The authors explore how autonomy could be used to enhance an STM system, and how constraints inherent in STM complicate and challenge certain applications of autonomy. We conceptually explore how autonomy could be used within an STM architecture, with multiple non-authoritative catalogs of resident space objects, and to determine which oftwo conjuncting spacecraft moves. NASA ARC is developing a software research environment for STM, along with a physical laboratory and visualization space. We invite STM stakeholders to collaborate in our infrastructure, to help inform the design of the proposed STM architecture, and to participate in the refinement and validation of its concept of operations using the software research platform.
Need for change is real, current systems are not sustainable. Sense of urgency is due to emerging markets and diversity of operations. Build-a-little-test-a-little and deploy. Research issues remain - however goal should be "cross the finish line" to improve operations. Research is means to an end and not an end in itself. Goal is highly scaled operations that are affordable and safe.
An overview of UTM (UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) Traffic Management) and UAM (Urban Air Mobility).
OverviewArchitectureApproach and scheduleFAA-NASA Research Transition Team deliverablesTechnical Capability Level 1 (TCL1) Demonstration overview and resultsTCL2 Demonstration overview and results.
Overview of how airspace is changing and what aspects of the ATM will remain/change over the coming years.