Inside Unmanned Systems provides actionable business intelligence to decision-makers and influencers operating within the global UAS community. Features include analysis of key technologies, policy/regulatory developments and new product design.
Issue link: https://insideunmanned.epubxp.com/i/643419
56 unmanned systems inside January/February 2016 AIR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT LATAS Low Altitude Tracking and Avoidance System LATAS is an automated air traffc control system for unmanned aircraft proposed by PrecisionHawk. Currently a prototype, it uses an onboard device and existing cellular networks to transmit real-time fight data to the FAA for tracking and collision avoidance. Users will be able to verify fight operations from a central location. ADS-B OUT Automatic Dependent Surveillance— Broadcast (out) ADS-B Out uses GPS to determine an aircraft's location, airspeed and other tracking details, which are broadcast to a network of ground stations. The network sends the information to air traffc control and to those nearby aircraft equipped to receive it via ADS-B In. Most aircraft in the U.S. must be ADS-B out equipped by 2020. TCAS Traffc Alert and Collision Avoidance System TCAS depends on transponders independent of the air traffc control system to prevent mid-air collisions. A plane's TCAS system interrogates other transponder-equipped aircraft within a certain range, building a 3D map of their location for the crew and alerting them to potential collisions. Planes carrying 10+ passengers must have TCAS. Sense and Avoid Systems TECHNOLOGY Surveillance Criticality As part of the overall effort to support beyond line-of-sight operations, the FAA also has asked ASSURE to evaluate what can be accomplished with the sense and avoid systems now used by manned aircraft. Using simulators the researchers will evaluate the potential for ADS-B and TCAS (the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System) to support UAS. They will then apply what they've learned in a study of the Low Altitude Tracking and Avoid- ance System or LATAS—a sense and avoid solu- tion proposed by PrecisionHawk that would use the nation's cellular networks to track UAS. Preci- sionHawk is part of the FAA's Pathfinder program for beyond line-of-site operations. The team wants to characterize the effect on the manned systems if they were to be operated without a pilot using the current CONOPS, that is the concept of operations developed as part of the aviation standards setting process. The concept of operations might include things like staying in a particular air corridor or avoiding certain types of flights, and how to handle dif- ferent weather conditions. We want to "evaluate all that so we can come out with the standards and those de- scriptions and say 'these are areas we need to do more research into' or 'here's the standards that need to be considered or the factors that need to be considered in the standards,'" said Kyle Snyder, director of NCSU's NextGen Air Transportation (NGAT) program. Unlike the ongoing sense and avoid studies, Snyder's team will evaluate the three systems' usefulness for drones of all sizes operating in urban as well as rural areas at a variety of alti- tudes. Toward the end of the three-phase proj- ect the team may also be asked to determine if adding ADS-B transponders to thousands of unmanned aircraft system might overload the ADS-B system. Once Snyder's researchers get done with run- ning their simulations they will have an idea of what will not work, what might work and what works best—including "a yardstick" for making those judgments. "At the end of this we should know what a re- ally good system should be able to do," Snyder told Inside Unmanned Systems. "So we should be able to come out with metrics to evaluate ei- ther new solutions of existing ADS-B or TCAS concepts or new solutions of new technolo- gies—like LATAS." Photos courtesy of Ohio State University I can imagine 1,000 different ways that someone could fy but there are some ways that people are actually operating and we want to get that information." Henry Cathey, co-lead researcher beyond line-of- sight study, New Mexico State University "