There is an increasing demand for access to the national airspace system (NAS) by new entrants such as unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) and space vehicles. The need is driving the research into the development of a ubiquitous surveillance framework. A framework where all means of aircraft position tracking systems, both cooperative and noncooperative, would be correlated and made available to all NAS users. The architecture of an envisioned surveillance system was the focus of a recent Volpe National Transportation Systems Center research activity. In this work, the term "Framework" is used to characterize an operational environment that forms the context for future UAS operations. Within this framework, the use of all existing and future surveillance technologies is envisioned. Included would be all airspace locations; including coverage for airspace not under surveillance today. While these surveillance means and methods of air traffic control may currently constrain new entrant operations, they also provide the opportunity for the plethora of enabling technological capabilities with associated policies and procedures that can result in the safe, orderly and efficient operation. The focus of this paper is to survey and identify surveillance technologies to support the integration of new entrants in the NAS, and how those technologies can be aggregated.
Operation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) require the same degree of pre-flight and mission planning as that preformed for manned aircraft. The goal of routine operations has an evolving safety case which must include the review of actions and conditions of the aircraft and the pilot during normal, off-nominal, abnormal and emergency events. UAS flight planning is currently a manually intensive process, and trying to replicate a pilot's decision making course of actions for mission contingencies is an exceptionally tedious and lengthy activity. Additionally, the incorporation of contingency/emergency routes is left up to the planner and there is no guarantee of sufficiency or consistency of contingency plans when activated.To support the recurring assessment of these actions, Mosaic ATM has performed a 2 year NASA project to development a mission safety assessment and contingency support tool called Aviate. Our project objective is to automate the UA contingency flight planning process providing uniform accounting to known conditions, hazards, and other factors. We will field, increasingly, a capable product suite that supports the mission planner, the air traffic controller, the PIC, and the onboard intelligent piloting function. This will provide a level of confidence and an equivalent level of safety to unmanned aircraft mission planning prior to any UAS departures from airfields in the NAS or flights into through the NAS.
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