Historically, Remotely Operated Aircraft (ROAs) have been operated predominately by the Department of Defense and flown in special use airspace (SUA) and/or in accordance with the FAA (Order No. 7610.4). ROAs are now being operated increasingly outside of SUA for a variety of DoD and civilian tasks normally assigned to manned aircraft. There exists a need to develop and integrate a "see and avoid" capability on current/future unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that is equivalent to manned aircraft. Engineering 2000 addresses this requirement through this SBIR, titled: The Development/Integration of Low Cost, Light Weight "See and Avoid" capability for UAVs. LADAR technology is used to detect obstacles and imagers are used to monitor the remainder. Collision avoidance steering will be achieved through an interface with SAAS onboard the UAV and the pilot/controller remotely located on the ground via up-and-down transmission links. By these means the collision avoidance function is directly under the control of a "man-in-the loop". This allows full optimization of benefits for improved UAV dispatchability and safety-of-flight. The concept results in reduction of: engineering, first costs, production, maintenance and operating costs.
Benefits: In addition to the Navy's potential use of "see and avoid" for military transports, fighters, stealth and reconnaisance air vehicles, private sector applicability could include: news coverage, traffic reporting, police surveillance, hovercraft, pipeline surveillance, commercial aircraft and pseudo satellites.
Keywords: collision avoidance see and avoid survivability unmanned aerial vehicles
