This study explored the ability of operators to provide separation between three unmanned aircraft using basic cockpit traffic displays. Four groups of three general aviation, instrument-rated pilots flew cross-country flights controlling simulated twin-engine unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). They were required to maintain 2 nautical miles (nmi) horizontal and 500 ft vertical separation from all other aircraft. To examine the effect of two important safety factors, the flights were conducted with and without communication among the operators and with and without variable accuracy in the displayed traffic location due to degraded sensor quality. Twenty four different three-dimensional traffic conflict trajectories with three UASs, were repeated randomly for each of the four experimental conditions for each group. Of the 1152 aircraft encounters 12.8% were in violation of separation minimums. Eighteen of these were closer than 400 ft vertically or 1.6 nmi horizontally. The minimum separation of all aircraft pairs was 293 ft and 0.13 nmi. No difference in minimum separations was found due to the presence of communications, the variable accuracy of traffic position, or the participant group. The type and time of evasive maneuvers showed no effect when displayed horizontal position accuracy was variable. When operators were able to communicate and coordinate their maneuvers, the time to resolve the conflict was reduced. Participant groups varied significantly in: time of conflict resolution, frequency and type of maneuvers, control activity, reported amount of threat, confidence, satisfaction, and appraisal of the efficacy of their communications. The findings of this study serve as a benchmark for the development of sense and avoid procedures and minimum equipage standards for operating UASs in the airspace over the United States.
Sense and Avoid. Operator Separation of Unmanned Aircraft in Conflict Trajectories
2014
5 Seiten, 6 Quellen
Conference paper
English
Sense and avoid for unmanned aircraft systems
IEEE | 2016
|Sense and Avoid for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems
AIAA | 2017
|Sense and Avoid for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems
NTRS | 2017
|