UAS Integration into the US National Airspace
This is an overview of UAS Integration into the National Airspace, with a focus on UTM as solution.
UTM↗
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An Implementation Analysis of Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) Technologies for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS)
The aviation industry and government agencies face a rapidly-emerging need for integrating large-scale populations of Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) into the worldwide controlled and uncontrolled airspace. Critical components for integration include the Communications, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) technologies necessary for ensuring safe UAS operations. Under NASA program NNA16BD84C, our work on CNS architectural concepts for the safe operation of UAS in controlled and uncontrolled airspace has introduced CNS architectures which must be analyzed in terms of implementation readiness.Controlled airspace operations for UAS are consistent with the needs for manned aviation in the worldwide Air Traffic Management (ATM) service. Uncontrolled airspace operations are consistent with the NASA Unmanned (air) Traffic Management (UTM) concept of operations. Implementation readiness is based on the NASA concept of Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) ranging from TRL1 (basic principles observed and reported) to TRL9 (actual system flight proven through successful mission operations). In the architecture concepts, we have introduced a number of new CNS architectural elements which need to be correlated with TRL levels. In this paper, we present our implementation analysis for communications networks, communications data links, navigation, and surveillance. Each area has been under active research and development during the course of the current NASA program which has produced studies on UAS CNS Requirements, UAS CNS Architecture for Controlled Airspace and UAS CNS Architecture for Uncontrolled Airspace. We have published our architecture concepts in major UAS-related conferences (including iCNS2017, IEEE Aerospace 2018, and iCNS2018) and will continue to seek additional publication opportunities. We look forward to continuing our work to realize a full integration testing scenario for both controlled and uncontrolled airspace operation.
Unmanned (Air) Traffic Management (UTM) service↗
Innovative Relentlessly: Enabling Innovation in Aviation While Respecting Its Safety Tradition
An overview of UTM (UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) Traffic Management) and UAM (Urban Air Mobility).
UAM↗
Embracing Innovation in Aviation While Respecting Its Safety Tradition
Overview of UTM and UAM at NASA
UAM↗
UAS Traffic Management Conflict Management Model
Version 2 of the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) Conflict Management Model. This document is a concept overview paper that describes the conflict mitigation methodology that supports the use cases described in TCL 4 operating environments (urban BVLOS operations). The general conflict mitigation model values the use of redundant mitigation technologies that operate over different time horizons to reach a target level of safety for the operation. Separation provision contributes to the safety of the overall separation, and each participant (USS, UAS, other airspace users) is responsible for ensuring separation is maintained between aircraft. The intent of this document is to capture the minimum level of separation provisions that are necessary for safe operations in the airspace. Additional equipage and capability can be seen as a mechanism to enhance safety but may not be the minimum need for entry into the airspace.
UTM↗
UAM Vision: Sky for All
To inform/update audience about NASA's Advanced Air Mobility mission: where we are, progress on national campaign, and how we anticipate a UTM-inspired model for airspace management to prepare for these new entrant vehicles.
AAM↗
Advanced Airborne Autonomy for Urban Flight Operations
Summary of research conducted under the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project involving airborne autonomy to enable high-density urban operations for UAS.
UTM↗
Immutable Secure Data Exchange and Storage for Urban Air Mobility Environments
The Urban Air Mobility (UAM) environment is derived from the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) concept of operations. Within the environment, UAM operators work independently to manage aerial vehicles in the urban environment. Providers of Services (PSU), UAM operators, and Supplemental Data Service Providers provide services to support flight operations within the UAM environment. The intent of this work is to leverage a permissioned blockchain approach, to, simulate secure data exchange and storage for UAM environments. Blockchain technologies can be used for identity management of vehicles, people, and systems.
Blockchain↗
Advanced Air Mobility
Coordinated through NASA PAO and Speaker's Bureau, Dr. Parimal Kopardekar will address the 1500 delegates from the Rotary community of business, corporate, and professional leaders through a pre-recorded presentation. The presentation is a briefing on NASA's UTM-inspired infrastructure and how it will be applied to advanced air mobility.
AAM↗
The Role of Airspace Management: New Entrants Need Quicker and Sustained Airspace Access
A briefing to FAA and DOD on NASA's current and future Airspace Traffic Management (ATM)/Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) efforts.
Airspace↗
Incorporating UAS Traffic Management into Wildland Firefighting Operations: Initial Findings of Subject Matter Expert Interviews
Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UASs) are being utilized throughout the disaster and emergency response domain, including in wildland firefighting operations. While UASs can offer safety benefits in comparison to crewed aircraft, such as removing the human pilot from the vehicle so that they are not exposed to the same risks and the ability to operate in low-visibility conditions, they are not without tradeoffs. For example, it can be challenging for UAS pilots (UASPs) to build situation awareness of the airspace in which their UAS is operating. In order to address some of the challenges associated with using UASs and provide greater assistance to the firefighters and incident personnel in the wildland firefighting environment, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project. Building on previous NASA research, ACERO will explore the implementation of a traffic management system in the wildland fire environment to enhance safety and support situation awareness. ACERO draws on the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system previously demonstrated in an urban environment. However, a traffic management system implemented in the wildland fire environment is expected to look and function much differently in order to meet the unique needs of this domain. At the outset of the ACERO project, interviews were conducted with five UASPs who operate UASs at wildland fire incidents. The interviews focused on exploring UASPs’ initial insights about the application of a traffic management system in wildland firefighting and understanding the unique needs of this environment. The UASPs discussed a range of topics including, the shape, size, and organization of UAS operations in the wildland fire environment, information needs for a user interface, such as traffic and map information, an alerting function when other traffic nears their operation area, and the importance of conformance monitoring. The UASPs also discussed their willingness to share operational information to support safety. In this paper, we describe the foundational work upon which ACERO will build and summarize the information and insights gathered during the UASP interviews, some of which have already informed the development of the ACERO work.
Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS)↗
Aviation Cybersecurity Challenges
Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) is the overarching term for traffic management approaches and/or associated services that address the operation of select new entrants within flexibly allocated, designated airspace. xTM will leverage the decentralized UTM model for traffic management, creating cybersecurity challenges that are common and unique.
Cybersecurty↗
Air Traffic Management Exploration
Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) is the overarching term for traffic management approaches and/or associated services that address the operation of select new entrants within flexibly allocated, designated airspace. xTM will leverage the decentralized UTM model for traffic management, creating cybersecurity challenges that are common and unique.
RAR↗
Incorporating UAS Traffic Management into Wildland Firefighting Operations: Initial Findings of Subject Matter Expert Interviews
Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UASs) are being utilized throughout the disaster and emergency response domain, including in wildland firefighting operations. While UASs can offer safety benefits in comparison to crewed aircraft, such as removing the human pilot from the vehicle so that they are not exposed to the same risks and the ability to operate in low-visibility conditions, they are not without tradeoffs. For example, it can be challenging for UAS pilots (UASPs) to build situation awareness of the airspace in which their UAS is operating. In order to address some of the challenges associated with using UASs and provide greater assistance to the firefighters and incident personnel in the wildland firefighting environment, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project. Building on previous NASA research, ACERO will explore the implementation of a traffic management system in the wildland fire environment to enhance safety and support situation awareness. ACERO draws on the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system previously demonstrated in an urban environment. However, a traffic management system implemented in the wildland fire environment is expected to look and function much differently in order to meet the unique needs of this domain. At the outset of the ACERO project, interviews were conducted with five UASPs who operate UASs at wildland fire incidents. The interviews focused on exploring UASPs’ initial insights about the application of a traffic management system in wildland firefighting and understanding the unique needs of this environment. The UASPs discussed a range of topics including, the shape, size, and organization of UAS operations in the wildland fire environment, information needs for a user interface, such as traffic and map information, an alerting function when other traffic nears their operation area, and the importance of conformance monitoring. The UASPs also discussed their willingness to share operational information to support safety. In this presentation, we describe the foundational work upon which ACERO will build and summarize the information and insights gathered during the UASP interviews, some of which have already informed the development of the ACERO work.
Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS)↗
Under canopy light detection and ranging–based autonomous navigation
This study describes a light detection and ranging (LiDAR)–based autonomous navigation system for an ultralightweight ground robot in agricultural fields. The system is designed for reliable navigation under cluttered canopies using only a 2D Hokuyo UTM–30LX LiDAR sensor as the single source for perception. Its purpose is to ensure that the robot can navigate through rows of crops without damaging the plants in narrow row–based and high–leaf–cover semistructured crop plantations, such as corn ( Zea mays ) and sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor ). The key contribution of our work is a LiDAR–based navigation algorithm capable of rejecting outlying measurements in the point cloud due to plants in adjacent rows, low–hanging leaf cover or weeds. The algorithm addresses this challenge using a set of heuristics that are designed to filter out outlying measurements in a computationally efficient manner, and linear least squares are applied to estimate within–row distance using the filtered data. Moreover, a crucial step is the estimate validation, which is achieved through a heuristic that grades and validates the fitted row–lines based on current and previous information. The proposed LiDAR–based perception subsystem has been extensively tested in production/breeding corn and sorghum fields. In such variety of highly cluttered real field environments, the robot logged more than 6 km of autonomous run in straight rows. These results demonstrate highly promising advances to LiDAR–based navigation in realistic field environments for small under–canopy robots.
42 ENGINEERING↗
An Investigation into the Influence of Filler Piper nigrum Leaves Extract on Physicochemical and Antimicrobial Properties of Chitosan/Poly (Vinyl Alcohol) Blend Films
The influence of Piper nigrum (P. nigrum) leaves extract on structural and physicochemical properties of chitosan/poly (vinyl alcohol) (CH/PVA) blend films were studied. The hypothesis of the study was confirmed by using UTM, SEM, AFM, TGA, DSC, XRD, and FTIR studies. Interestingly, increased mechanical properties were observed with inclusion of P. nigrum leaves extract to the CH/PVA blend films. SEM micrographs revealed that there is a smooth homogeneous phase morphology with better compatibility. The results of X-ray diffraction study confirmed that influence of crystallinity on mechanical properties of the blend films. Further, the results of TGA witnessed that addition of P. nigrum leaves extract did not influence much on thermal stability of the CH/PVA blend films. The presence of a single glass transition temperature (T{sub g}) indicated that complete miscibility among the blend components. The result of FTIR study confirmed the presence of a significant interaction among the chitosan, PVA and P. nigrum leaves extract. The water contact angle measurement and the antimicrobial study revealed that CH/PVA/P. nigrum leaves extract blend films showed decreased hydrophobicity and enhanced antimicrobial activity. Hence, this partly stimulated research data obtained from the study might be an advantage for new packaging material preparations in the future.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Constitutive Modeling for Hot Deformation Behavior of Al-5083 + SiC Composite
In the present research, isothermal hot deformation behavior of aluminum 5083 alloy + 15 (wt.%) SiC composite was obtained through compression test on INSTRON 8801 universal tensile testing machine (UTM) under a wide temperature range of 473-773 K and strain rate range of 0.01-10 s{sup −1}. The experimental true stress–strain data were employed to establish constitutive equations based on modified Johnson–Cook (JC) model and modified Zerilli–Armstrong (ZA) model to predict the hot flow behavior of the composite. The flow stress values obtained from these two models were plotted against the experimental flow curves to check the accuracy of these models. Suitability of the models was evaluated by comparing correlation coefficient (R), average absolute relative error and relative errors of prediction. The results show that the hot flow stresses of the present material depend on temperature and strain rate significantly. Both the models give good description of the hot deformation behavior of the composite. The prediction accuracy is found to be higher for modified ZA model compared to modified JC model, though the number of materials constants involved and time needed to evaluate them to establish the model are lower for modified JC model.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
Physical-biopolymer characterization of polyhydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate (PHBV) blended with natural rubber latex
A biopolymer of polyhydroxybutyrate-co-hydroxyvalerate (PHBV) is blended with bio-based materials, natural rubber latex, to improve their microstructures. The various ratios between PHBV and natural rubber latex are examined to develop their mechanical properties. In general, physical properties of PHBV are hard, brittle and low flexible while natural rubber (NR) is presented itself as high elastic materials. Concentrations of the PHBV solution are constituted at 1%, 2% and 3% (w/v). The mixtures of their PHBV solutions to natural rubber latex are produced the blended films in three different ratios of 4:6, 5:5 and 6:4, respectively. They are characterized by appearance analyses which are the scanning electron microscope (SEM), universal testing machine (UTM) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The SEM photomicrographs of the blended films and the controlled PHBV can provide the void distribution in the range of 12-14% and 19-21%, respectively. For mechanical properties of the blended films, the various elastic moduli of 1%, 2% and 3% (w/v) PHBV are the average of 773, 956 and 1,007 kPa, respectively. The tensile strengths of the blends increase with the increased concentrations of PHBV, similarly trend to the elastic modulus. The crystallization and melting behavior of unmixed PHBV and the blends are determined by DSC. Melting transition temperatures (T{sub m}) of the unmixed PHBV are stated two melting peak at 154°C and 173°C. Besides, the melting peaks of the blends alter in the range of 152-156°C and 168-171°C, respectively. According to morphology of the blends, the void distribution decreases twice compared to the unmixed PHBV. The results of mechanical properties and thermal analysis indicate that the blended PHBV can be developed their properties by more resilient and wide range of temperature than usual.
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗