NASA’s UAS Integration into the NAS

Abstract

1 toward its two objectives: 1) develop GCS guidelines for routine UAS access to the NAS, and 2) develop a prototype display suite within an existing Ground Control Station (GCS). The first objective directly addresses a critical barrier for UAS integration into the NAS -a lack of GCS design standards or requirements. First, the paper describes the initial development of a prototype GCS display suite and supporting simulation software capabilities. Then, three simulation experiments utilizing this simulation architecture are summarized. The first experiment sought to determine a baseline performance of UAS pilots operating in civil airspace under current instrument flight rules for manned aircraft. The second experiment examined the effect of currently employed UAS contingency procedures on Air Traffic Control (ATC) participants. The third experiment compared three GCS command and control interfaces on UAS pilot response times in compliance with ATC clearances. The authors discuss how the results of these and future simulation and flight-testing activities contribute to the development of GCS guidelines to support the safe integration of UAS into the NAS. Finally, the planned activities for Phase 2, including an integrated human-in-the-loop simulation and two flight tests are briefly described.

UAS Pilot Assessments of Display and Alerting for the Airborne Collision Avoidance System XU

“…The current project builds upon similar studies that examined locations and contents of DAA displays within earlier systems (Fern et al, 2014;Monk et al, 2015;Rorie et al, 2016;Rorie et al, 2017;Santiago et al, 2015). This was accomplished by gathering pilots' subjective feedback, during a HITL simulation, using ACAS X U as the DAA system.…”

“…Since the early 2000s, the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS) has been an ongoing effort of the UAS community and participating organizations (FAA, 2018; Fern et al, 2014). A significant technological challenge for UAS integration is compliance with the "see and avoid" requirement that is mandated under section 91.113 of Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations (2004, p. 830).…”

“…This has been accomplished using multimodal alerting and guidance from ground control station (GCS) interfaces (Rorie et al, 2016;Rorie et al, 2017). Some of these studies specifically explored pilot performance as the result of where the DAA information was located, either separated from the primary navigation display and interfaces (i.e., standalone) or collocated with them (i.e., integrated, Fern et al, 2014).…”