NASA NTRS2017
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System Project has conducted 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 2015 Flight Test Series 3, supported two separate test configurations. The first configuration investigated the timing of Detect and Avoid 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 Detect and Avoid advisories to maintain separation from live and virtual aircraft. The test was conducted over an eight-week span within the R-2508 Special Use Airspace. Over 200 encounters were flown for the first configuration, and although the second configuration was cancelled after three data collection flights, Flight Test 3 proved to be invaluable for the purposes of planning, managing, and execution of this type of integrated flight test.
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