An approach to assess the safety of ADS-B based unmanned aerial systems

Abstract

The increasing demand for the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in various social and economic applications have pressed aviation authorities to draw up rules and regulations that permit the release of such aircraft in nonsegregated airspace. However, issues related to the safety of air traffic operations arise when considering the possibility of coexistence of manned and unmanned aircraft simultaneously. Thus, surveillance plays a key role in monitoring and controlling air traffic in new scenarios. The positional information provided by the Automatic Dependent Surveillance -Broadcast (ADS-B), originally designed to improve situational awareness for pilots and support controllers in air traffic management, interacts with the Sense and Avoid Systems (S&AS) of the UAS in order to avoid exposure to events of loss of separation (AIRPROX) andcollisions. This paper presents a qualitative approach to assess safety when using ADS-B systems integrated with UASs in aeronautical operations. In addition, the possibility of using a methodology previously applied on manned systems for assessing safety on UASs is discussed. A new testing platform (PIpE-SEC) is presented as a possible solution for this safety evaluation.