Phase II Amount
$1,077,564
Currently the UAS arena includes traditional airframers, established UAS manufacturers, hobbyists, academic institutions, and many air vehicle newcomers that see UAS as a means to other military or commercial applications. A myriad of issues continues to slow the development of verification, validation, and certification methods. These issues include the lack of both a consensus UAS categorization process and quantitative certification requirements including the definition of handling qualities. The how to of safely integrating UAS in naval operations where they will operate with manned aircraft raises many questions with limited answers. Perhaps the problem is too big. Because of a lack of quantitative data, attempts to address core problems thus far have failed to achieve consensus support. This Phase II program does not propose to tame the entire verification, validation, and certification problem, but instead the important need to define UAS handling qualities in piloted, pilot monitoring, and autonomous operations via a mission-oriented approach. The end product will be the UAS Handling Qualities Assessment software toolbox (UAS-HQ) and corresponding specification that will guide Navy stakeholders through a systematic evaluation process. This process will be validated in Phase II via testing of fixed wing and rotary wing UAS.
Benefit: The end product of this proposed Phase II program will be a version of the UAS Handling Qualities Assessment Software System (UAS-HQ) and corresponding specification that is directed toward Navy UAS operations. The software and specification will guide UAS stakeholders through a systematic handling qualities evaluation process. Because of limited available data, the software and supporting specification will define a complete assessment process, while requirements may remain in draft form until more data become available. With rapidly expanding UAS markets, there will be a growing need for UAS-HQ to verify that a given UAS is capable of meeting mission task performance requirements at an acceptable level. The market includes UAS operators of vehicles in restricted and the National Airspace including military, government (e.g., Border Patrol, Coast Guard, and Department of Interior), and industry. For industry, this includes traditional airframers, UAS manufacturers, and non-traditional developers of aircraft such as Google, Amazon, and others wherein UAS will be expected to operate efficiently and safely in urban and rural environments.
Keywords: mission task element, Handling Qualities, specification requirements, Unmanned Aerial Systems
