SBIR-STTR Award

The proposing team will develop a practical, complete Autonomous UAS Detect, Sense, and Avoid (AU-DSA) system for safe and effective UAS operations within the National Airspace System (NAS) and outside of Special Use Airspace. The AU-DSA will incorporate a compact, flexible, state-of-the-art avionics system, innovative guidance algorithms designed to comply with FAA-mandated operating procedures, and an intuitive interface for communications with operators, ATC, or other pilots in order to provide the complete range of functionalities needed for a UAS to operate safely and autonomously in the NAS.

Benefit:
As UAVs continue to proliferate, the need for systems that can provide these vehicles with autonomous detect, sense, and avoid capabilities, and the need to operate these systems in the same airspace as manned aircraft will become ever more critical. The DoD, NASA, and the FAA have all recognized this need, and continue to support a variety of UAS/NAS integration activities. Not only are UAS the fastest growing weapon in the U.S. arsenal, UAS are currently the fastest growing segment in the aerospace sector worldwide, with an estimated global market value of over $2 billion. Future FAA regulations will likely require systems like the AU-DSA for operations in the NAS, meaning that nearly every UAS operated by the military or private contractors will represent a potential opportunity for integration of an AU-DSA system.

Keywords:
Autonomy, Autonomy, DSA, UAS, guidance, Sense, and Avoid, NAS, Detect

The proposing team will continue the development and testing of the Autonomous UAS Detect, Sense, and Avoid (AU-DSA) system for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). Key capabilities of the AU-DSA that set it apart from other autonomous collision avoidance systems include: 1) Autonomously complying with federally mandated operating procedures, 2) Operating as efficiently in multiple-aircraft scenarios as in two-aircraft scenarios, 3) Executing maneuvers that result in minimum disturbance to the overall airspace, and 4) Generating autonomous yet highly deterministic aircraft behaviors. In addition, the AU-DSA design incorporates a compact, flexible, state-of-the-art avionics system and an intuitive interface for communications with operators, ATC, and other pilots, in order to provide the complete range of functionalities needed for a UAS to operate safely and autonomously in the NAS. The main goal of this work is to develop and demonstrate the systems necessary to equip small UAVs with a collision avoidance system capable of autonomously complying with federally mandated regulations. While the Phase I focused on the design and initial implementation and testing of the AU-DSA system, the Phase II focuses on issues that must be addressed prior to AU-DSA certification.

Keywords:
Image Processing, Image Processing, Non-cooperative aircraft, Extended Kalman filter, Detect Sense and Avoid, unmanned aircraft system, collision avoidance