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NASA NTRS2017

Validation of Minimum Display Requirements for a UAS Detect and Avoid System

The full integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS), a prerequisite for enabling a broad range of public and commercial UAS operations, presents several technical challenges to UAS developers, operators and regulators. A primary barrier is the inability for UAS pilots (situated at a ground control station, or GCS) to comply with Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations sections 91.111 and 91.113, which require pilots to see and avoid other aircraft in order to maintain well clear. The present study is the final in a series of human-in-the-loop experiments designed to explore and test the various display and alerting requirements being incorporated into the minimum operational performance standards (MOPS) for a UAS-specific detect and avoid system that would replace the see and avoid function required of manned aircraft. Two display configurations were tested - an integrated display and a standalone display - and their impact on pilot response times and ability to maintain DAA well clear were compared. Results indicated that the current draft of the MOPS result in high-level performance and did not meaningfully differ by display configuration.

unmanned aircraft systems↗

NASA NTRS2017

Comprehensive Analysis Modeling of Small-Scale UAS Rotors

Multicopter unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), or drones, have continued their explosive growth in recent years. With this growth comes demand for increased performance as the limits of existing technologies are reached. In order to better design multicopter UAS aircraft, better performance prediction tools are needed. This paper presents the results of a study aimed at using the rotorcraft comprehensive analysis code CAMRAD II to model a multicopter UAS rotor in hover. Parametric studies were performed to determine the level of fidelity needed in the analysis code inputs to achieve results that match test data. Overall, the results show that CAMRAD II is well suited to model small-scale UAS rotors in hover. This paper presents the results of the parametric studies as well as recommendations for the application of comprehensive analysis codes to multicopter UAS rotors.

Analysis↗

NASA NTRS2016

Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) "AirStation": Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Carrier Concept

Proposals for adapting modern airship technologies for military missions have mostly focused on exploiting the airships high flight endurance and low fuel requirement to conduct direct surveillance missions requiring high degrees of persistence over the areas to be observed. While this mission has value, it constrains the airship in two regards. (1) It places all the surveillance sensors, communication systems, and other mission equipment in the airship itself. (2) It requires the airship to be physically in the vicinity of the areas to be directly observed. A more advanced utilization of airship technology would be to add the capability to deploy a separate set of surveillance equipment, thereby enabling indirect and distributed observation operations. This can be undertaken by installing surveillance equipment in a squadron of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that can be carried and operated remotely from the airship, and then return to the airship as a base of support. This could be accomplished by deploying 20-30 UASs on an optionally manned (5 person crew) airship. The mission focus of the airship UAS carrier would be for support of distributed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), close air support (CAS), maritime patrol and interdiction, electronic warfare (EW), persistent area dominance and missile defense. The logic for utilizing an airship carrier over a ground base to deploy UAS will be examined. Whether to be used as a stand-alone platform or in concert with conventional intelligence gathering techniques, the airship UAS carrier can provide the following benefits: a mobile base that will remain accessible despite political fallout which may render a ground base unavailable for use, the psychological impact of a power projection tool that has no geographical limits (imagined in the same way a naval carrier group projects power), cost-saving intelligence gathering over manned alternatives (assumption), and a wider area of influence when compared to an immobile ground base that must facilitate the transfer of UAS to other bases in order to overfly particular areas (all operations, launch, recover, etc. take place from the airship).

Hochstetler, Ron↗

NASA NTRS2018

UAS Research - Who's Doing What?

This presentation includes the UAS-Enabled Market Categories used in Study, as well as the reason for the UAS-NAS NO Chase COA flight. It discusses the transitioning of a UA from different airspaces. UAS Integration is a community wide effort, and the FAA Symposium provides attendees with the opportunity to engage face-to-face with a cross-section of government and industry leaders and innovators about the latest industry developments, regulations, research, and other initiatives to safely integrate UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS).

conference↗

NASA NTRS2018

Assessing C2 Communications for UAS Traffic Management

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project works to develop tools and technologies essential for safely enabling civilian low-altitude UAS operations. 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. The UTM technical challenge will develop comprehensive and validated airspace operations and integration requirements to safely enable large-scale persistent access to visual line of sight and autonomous beyond visual line of sight small UAS in low-altitude airspace. Within the UTM project, a number of communications technologies to support UTM command and control (C2) are under investigation. In particular, commercial networked cellular systems are being tested and assessed for their ability to meet the reliability, scalability, cybersecurity and redundancy required. NASA Glenn Research Center is studying some of the aspects of employing such networks for UTM C2 communications. This includes the development of a test platform for sensing and characterizing the airborne C2 communications environment at various altitudes and in various terrains and topologies, measuring such aspects as received signal strength and interference. System performance aspects such as latency in the link, handover performance, packet error loss rate, drop outs, coverage gaps and other aspects impacting UTM operation will also be assessed. In this paper we explore some of the C2 approaches being proposed and demonstrated in the UTM project, the reliability, availability and other general C2 performance requirements, and approaches to evaluating and analyzing UTM C2 links based on commercial cellular networks.

air traffic control↗

NASA NTRS2018

Multi-UAS HITL: Primary Results & Automation Workshop Summaries

This presentation covers the primary results from a recently completed human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation conducted as part of the UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System) integration into the NAS (National Airspace System) project. The HITL examined the impact of multiple (simultaneous) UAS control while performing a demanding mission task and managing scripted conflicts. The scripted conflicts were designed to trigger the detect-and-avoid (DAA) system. This was the first time the DAA system as designed as part of the UAS-NAS project has been applied to multi-UAS control. The second part of the presentation briefly summarizes the takeaways from two workshops held on human-automation interaction considerations for UAS integration. NASA co-hosted and participated in both workshops.

unmanned aircraft systems↗

NASA NTRS2018

Multi UAS Demo System Example Video

This presentation covers the primary results from a recently completed human-in-the-loop (HITL) simulation conducted as part of the UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) integration into the NAS (National Airspace System) project. The HITL examined the impact of multiple (simultaneous) UAS control while performing a demanding mission task and managing scripted conflicts. The scripted conflicts were designed to trigger the detect-and-avoid (DAA) system. This was the first time the DAA system as designed as part of the UAS-NAS project has been applied to multi-UAS control. The second part of the presentation briefly summarizes the takeaways from two workshops held on human-automation interaction considerations for UAS integration. NASA co-hosted and participated in both workshops.

Rorie, Robert C.↗

NASA NTRS2019

UAS Concept of Operations and Vehicle Technologies Demonstration

In 2017 and 2018, under National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsorship, the New York Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Test Site and Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research (NUAIR) Alliance conducted a year-long research project that culminated in a UAS technology flight demonstration. The research project included the creation of a concept of operations, and development and demonstration of UAS technologies. The concept of operations was focused on an unmanned aircraft transiting from cruise through Class E airspace into a high-density urban terminal environment. The terminal environment in which the test was conducted was Griffiss International Airport, under Syracuse Air Traffic Control (ATC) approach control and Griffiss control tower. Employing an Aurora Centaur optionally piloted aircraft (OPA), this project explored six scenarios aimed at advancing UAS integration into the National Airspace System (NAS) under both nominal and off-nominal conditions. Off-nominal conditions were defined to include complete loss of the communications link between the remote pilot’s control station on the ground and the aircraft. The off-nominal scenarios that were investigated included lost-link conditions with and without link recovery, an automated ATC initiated go-around, autonomous rerouting around a dynamic airspace obstruction (in this case simulated weather), and autonomous taxi operations to clear the runway.

Swieringa, Kurt↗

NASA NTRS2019

Ground Risk Assessment Service Provider (GRASP) Development Effort as a Supplemental Data Service Provider (SDSP) for Urban Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Operations

NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) project aims to enable the integration of new aviation paradigms such as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) while providing the necessary infrastructure for future concepts such as On-Demand Mobility (ODM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations in the National Airspace System (NAS). In order to do so, the UTM project has developed an architecture to allow communication among UAS operators, UAS Service Suppliers (USS), Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP), and the public. As part of this framework, the Supplemental Data Service Providers (SDSP) are envisioned as model and/or data based services that disseminate essential or enhanced information to ensure safe operations within low-altitude airspace. These services include terrain and obstacle data, specialized weather data, surveillance, constraint information, risk monitoring, etc. This paper highlights the development efforts of a non-participant casualty risk assessment SDSP called Ground Risk Assessment Service Provider (GRASP) which assists operators with preflight planning. GRASP is based on the previously introduced UTM Risk Assessment Framework (URAF) and allows UAS operators to simulate and visualize potential non-participant casualty risks associated with their proposed flight. The risk assessment capability also allows operators to revise their flight plans if the casualty risks are determined to be above acceptable thresholds. GRASP is configured to account for future improvements including servicing airborne aircraft as part of NASA’s System-Wide Safety (SWS) project.

Ancel, Ersin↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Research to Expand UAS Operations for Disaster Response

Natural disasters can result in the loss of life and cost governments and private industry billions to recover each year. Over the past decade the rate and severity of natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes have resulted in increasingly negative impacts to communities, public health, natural ecosystems, and the economy. To help reduce these impacts, NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate is working to advance technologies and enable the safe and efficient inclusion of novel aviation applications to better assist in disaster response. To execute on these efforts, NASA’s Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) and System-Wide Safety (SWS) projects have developed coordinated strategic research plans focused on aviation operations for disaster response. The ACERO project will be a multi-year effort that focuses on enabling the use of uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) to improve firefighter safety and efficiency and enable the use of UAS to conduct new missions such as logistics and aerial suppression. The ACERO project will demonstrate technologies that support the Second Shift concept, enabling UAS and ground technologies to support aerial suppression in degraded visual conditions (e.g., heavy smoke, nighttime). The SWS project will be a multi-year effort that focuses on addressing the key safety barriers that are preventing the authorization of UAS operations in a variety of increasingly complex disaster response applications: post-hurricane response, medical courier, and urban disaster response. The SWS project will demonstrate an In-Time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) designed to effectively monitor, assess, and mitigate safety risks associated with hazards to UAS operations for disaster response. This paper will provide a deeper insight into NASA’s research and development plans and discuss how solutions developed in partnership with industry stakeholders and federal agencies will improve disaster response across the globe.

disaster response↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

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)↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

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)↗

NASA NTRS2016

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project: KDP-A for Phase 2 Minimum Operational Performance Standards

UAS Integration in the NAS Project has: a) Developed Technical Challenges that are crucial to UAS integration, aligned with NASA's Strategic Plan and Thrusts, and support FAA standards development. b) Demonstrated rigorous project management processes through the execution of previous phases. c) Defined Partnership Plans. d) Established path to KDP-C. Request approval of Technical Challenges, execution of partnerships and plans, and execution of near-term FY17 activities. There is an increasing need to fly UAS in the NAS to perform missions of vital importance to National Security and Defense, Emergency Management, and Science. There is also an emerging need to enable commercial applications such as cargo transport (e.g. FedEx). Unencumbered NAS Access for Civil/Commercial UAS. Provide research findings, utilizing simulation and flight tests, to support the development and validation of DAA and C2 technologies necessary for integrating Unmanned Aircraft Systems into the National Airspace System.

pilotless aircraft↗

NASA NTRS2018

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Integration into the National Airspace System (NAS)

NASA's Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) integration into the National Air Space (NAS) project has been working closely with the FAA and RTCA Special Committee 228 to identify and break down barriers to UAS integration. A focus of this work is on detect and avoid (DAA) technologies. A pilot has responsibility to see and avoid other aircraft and to remain "well clear," using their best judgment (Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) Sec. 91.113). For UAS to perform this function, the see function is replaced by sensors to detect the other aircraft. Secondly, the pilot judgment of well clear has to be replaced by a mathematical expression. For Phase 1 of this effort, a well clear violation was defined if all three of these conditions are true: a) the horizontal clearance is less than 4000 ft., and b) the vertical clearance is less than 450 ft., and c) the time to loss of well clear is less than 35 seconds. This definition was developed with a great deal of community input and testing to ensure interoperability with Air Traffic Control (ATC) and pilots of manned aircraft. Appropriate guidance, alerting and displays were developed to allow UAS, with the appropriate sensors, to effectively maintain well clear. This work contributed to FAA Technical Standard Orders: TSO-C211, Detect and Avoid and TSO-C212, ATAR for Traffic Surveillance. Phase 2 of this work extends the operational environment to include the terminal area and lesser capable aircraft that might not have the payload capability to carry the RADAR defined in Phase 1. This session reports on work from Phase 1 and initial work in Phase 2.

UAS↗

NASA NTRS2018

Detect and Avoid: Efforts from NASA's UAS Integration into the NAS Project

Detect and Avoid (DAA)↗

NASA NTRS2018

UTM UAS Service Supplier Development: Sprint 2 Toward Technical Capability Level 4

NASA's UAS Traffic Management (UTM) Project has been tasked with developing concepts and initial implementations for integrating and managing small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the low altitude airspace. To accomplish this task, the UTM Project planned a phased approach based on four Technical Capability Levels (TCLs). As of this writing, TCL4 is currently in development for a late Spring 2019 flight demonstration. This TCL is focused on operations in an urban environment and includes the handling of high density environments, large-scale off-nominal conditions, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, detect-and-avoid technologies, communication requirements, public safety operations, airspace restrictions, and other related goals. Through research and testing to date, NASA has developed an architecture for UTM that depends on commercial entities collaboratively providing services that are traditionally provided by the Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) in manned aviation. A key component of this architecture is the UAS Service Supplier (USS), which acts as a communications bridge between UAS operators and the ANSP when necessary. In addition, the collection of USSs form a USS Network to collaboratively manage the airspace through the sharing of data and the adherence to a standard or set of standards required to participate in this USS Network. This document provides a record of the second of four planned steps in the development of interoperable USSs that will ultimately support TCL4 flight testing and formalization of the overall UTM concept. To develop these USSs and their underlying specifications, NASA has planned a series of "Sprints" to work with industry partners in implementing the features and develop proposed specifications for USSs in order to to participate in TCL4. This report describes Sprint Two. In this Sprint, there was a major theme with four goals. The theme was the development and testing of a new USS discovery system, to better enable USSs to find and communicate with each other. The goals supporting this theme were: participants needed to implement and exercise the discovery service for USS-USS communications; USSs needed to demonstrate strategic deconfliction through operation sharing; the systems were to use discovery to aid in handling off-nominal operations; and finally, there was an investigation of an initial off-nominal reporting capability.

software engineering↗

NASA NTRS2019

Use of UAS Reports (UREPs) during TCL3 Field Testing

During the NASA Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) Project’s Technical Capability Level 3 (TCL3) demonstration, a service for stakeholders to share weather and aircraft observations was tested. The overall goal was to increase awareness of airspace and weather activity to increase a pilot’s ability to fly safely. To achieve this goal, a mechanism to share data was created, called “UAS Reports” or UREPs, which were generated by client systems and sent to a central data service. The data service provided subscriptions and allowed for data requests to share the reports that had been sent in by stakeholders. To execute this functionality, four FAA (Federal Aviation Administration)-designated UAS test sites performed UREP testing as part of TCL3. NASA provided the centralized service and test site partners flew missions and simulated activity at the test sites to generate data to send to the service. The loop was closed by having other clients (usually other small UAS operators) request those data from the service or subscribe to feeds from the service. Overall, the tests demonstrated the utility of such a service. In this report, the testing setup, data collection, and analysis of results are presented. The concept of UREPs has since been incorporated as a service within NASA’s Conflict Mitigation Model for UTM. The concept will continue to be tested in NASA’s TCL4 activities.

UTM↗

NASA NTRS2020

TCL4 UTM (UAS Traffic Management) Nevada 2019 Flight Tests, Airspace Operations Laboratory (AOL) Report

The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) research project has been developing and testing concept ideas for enabling small UAS (sUAS) operations in low altitude airspace (ground to 400 feet). To do this, NASA has organized a series of flight test demonstrations. Technology Capability Level-4 (TCL4) flight tests were conducted at a Nevada, USA test site, during June 2019. The testing resulted in over 300 data collection flights using eight live rotorcraft, 15 simulated vehicles, involving six flight crews and five Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Service Suppliers (USS). The TCL4 approach was designed to demonstrate five scenarios that set up five diverse sets of UAS events and activities. The Nevada test site focused on three of these scenarios: an incoming weather front, a concert event with an incident requiring an emergency response, and a scenario where multiple vehicles experienced Communication, Navigation, and Surveillance (CNS) issues. The test site created their scenarios to each have three phases and were required to complete three executions of each scenario, for a total of nine missions per Nevada vehicle per scenario. This document presents data collected from participants during the TCL4-Nevada flight test that provides information about how much and how well operators were able to make use of UTM functions and information, with the goal of exploring what the minimum information requirements and/or best practices might be in TCL4 operations. The driving enquiry was: how do UTM tools and features support (human) operators leading to safe and effective conduct of large-scale beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) sUAS operations in “urban canyon” environments? As with the data collected during previous similar tests (e.g., TCL3, Martin et al., 2019), the quality of the UTM information exchanged, and the meaningfulness and therefore usefulness of this information, were all focal points of the questions asked and the data collected. Data aligned with five human-system attributes to indicate that UTM provided information that contributed to users’ ability to operate safely and effectively within UTM, but that information was not always complete and was sometimes unclear.

UTM↗