Using Segmented Standard Taxi Routes to Integrate Unmanned Aircraft Systems at Civil Airports

Abstract

Cargo airlines and other aircraft operating agencies are interested in commercially exploiting and benefiting from the technical possibilities provided by unmanned aircraft systems. Use cases could be long-range unmanned air transport, flight calibration, or surveillance missions. It is natural that, depending on weight and size, unmanned aircraft are going to use the existing ground infrastructure together with manned aircraft. However, it is also a well-known fact that remotely piloted or automatic / autonomous unmanned aircraft do not have the same abilities and behavior as manned aircraft. There is a need to achieve a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of a mixed traffic constellation even when more than one unmanned aircraft are involved in aerodrome operations at the same time. Unfortunately, due to a lack of international standardization and regulation, it is still unknown which abilities a commercial unmanned aircraft will have. This makes it very difficult to define operational procedures. In the frame of the SESAR 2020 project 'Surface Management Operations' (SuMO), a procedural concept for ground movements of unmanned aircraft together with manned aircraft was elaborated. This concept uses so called segmented standard taxi routes and aims at realizing mixed traffic with an equal level of safety compared to pure manned traffic as well as very low system requirements for unmanned aircraft systems. In November 2017, this concept was validated together with tower controllers, conventional pilots, remotely piloted aircraft operators and an air traffic management expert from the German Air Navigation Service Provider DFS in a gaming workshop over several days. The validation covered departures, arrivals and non-nominal situations like C2 link loss or lost communication. Results showed that this concept likely allows a fast and easy integration of unmanned aircraft systems. It was rated as very practical, realistic and acceptable in terms of safety, human performance and the key performance areas access and equity as well as interoperability.

Segmented Standard Taxi Routes—A New Way to Integrate Remotely Piloted Aircraft into Airport Surface Traffic

“…The solution that is taken here is based on procedures already applied for manned aircraft on some aerodromes, e.g., Antalya Airport, Turkey [13]. A detailed explanation of the approach and this procedure is provided in Reference [8], wherein the main idea is as follows:…”

“…The term "this procedure" refers to the new SSTR concept. The results of this inquiry have been comprehensively published in Reference [8]. Summarized, the level of safety was estimated on the average as very high for all scenarios, i.e., Baseline 1, Baseline 2 and SSTR (average value 9.05 on a scale from 1 to 10).…”

“…This leads to different challenges for a safe integration of RPAS into airport surface traffic. A detailed overview on these challenges is provided in Reference [8].…”

“…Currently, the following two options on how RPAS ground movements are realistically thinkable, taking latest aviation law and regulations into account [8,12]:…”

“…Within the Single European Sky ATM Research Programme (SESAR) project PJ03a Surface Management Operations (SuMO) Solution 9, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) developed a first and simple concept on how the integration of unmanned aircraft can be achieved with segmented standard taxi routes. Supplementary to two preceding publications at the yearly Digital Avionics System Conferences (DASC) in 2018 and 2019 [8,9], this article gives a complete overview on the whole research activities done by DLR in PJ03a-09, providing numerous insights not yet published. This includes detailed human factors analysis conducted with pilots, air traffic controllers and remote pilots for the first (V1) validation cycle, as well as comprehensive qualitative feedback which is not yet contained in previous publications.…”