Reference for Podcast #49. Air date May 29 at 1:00pm Pacific

1. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
www.nasa.gov
Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration in the
National Airspace System (NAS) Project
Presented by: Mr. Chuck Johnson
Manager, UAS Integration in the NAS Project
UAS Symposium
March 13, 2013

2. NASA’s Current UAS Operations
• The Science Mission Directorate owns/leases UAS for the conduct of
science missions
o Wide range of science missions including hurricane tracking, fire sensing and
observations, hyperspectral environmental data collection
o Planned missions including measurement of polar ice melt and atmospheric
particulate data collection
• Science missions are all successfully completed in the NAS using a COA
o COA process has become extremely efficient
o Resource and time required to acquire the COA has been significantly reduced
o Some missions are limited by constraints of the COA process
• The Aeronautics Mission Directorate develops and tests UAS technologies
in conjunction with external partners
o Partners include DARPA, AFRL, industry
o Testing is conducted in restricted airspace
• The Aeronautics Mission Directorate has established the UAS Integration
in the NAS Project to develop technologies for enabling civil access to the
NAS
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3. Problem Statement, Goals, Objectives
• There is an increasing need to fly UAS in the NAS to perform missions of vital
importance to National Security and Defense, Emergency Management, and
Science. There is also an emerging need to enable commercial applications
such as cargo transport (e.g. FedEx)
Capitalizing on NASA’s unique capabilities, the project will utilize integrated
system level tests in a relevant environment to eliminate or reduce critical
technical barriers of integrating UAS into the NAS
• The project will develop a body of evidence (validated data, algorithms,
analysis, and recommendations) to support key decision makers, establish
policies, procedures, standards, and regulations to enable routine UAS access
to the NAS
• The project will also provide a methodology for developing airworthiness
requirements for UAS, and data to support development of certification
standards and regulatory guidance for civil UAS
• The project will support the development of a national UAS access roadmap
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4. Airspace Integration Technical Challenge
• Barriers Being Addressed by NASA
o Uncertainty surrounding the ability of UAS to interoperate in ATC environments
and maintain safe separation from other aircraft in the absence of an on-board
pilot
o Lack of requirements for Sense and Avoid (SAA) systems and their
interoperability with Separation Assurance (SA) functions
o Lack of standards and guidelines with respect to UAS display/information
o Lack of data to validate that civil frequency spectrum allocated during WRC12
for UAS control and non- payload communication (CNPC) communications are
secure, scalable, and suitable for safety of flight operations
• Project Contributions to Advance the State of the Art
o We will analyze capacity, efficiency and safety impacts of SAA-equipped UAS in the
ATC environment to validate the requirements for SAA and SA/SAA interoperability
through simulation and flight tests
o We will evaluate ground control station (GCS) system human intervention in
automated systems to inform and validate standards for UAS GCSs through
prototyping, simulation and flight tests
o We will develop a candidate UAS CNPC prototype system to validate that allocated
civil UAS spectrum is secure, scalable, and suitable for safety-of-flight operations
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5. Standards/Regulations Technical Challenge
• Barriers Being Addressed by NASA
o Lack of civil UAS standards, regulations, and guidelines for GCS design and
display of information
o Lack of validated regulations, standards, and practices for safe, secure, and
efficient UAS CNPC including integration with air traffic control
communications
o Lack of safety-related data available to support decision making for defining
civil airworthiness requirements specific to the full range of UAS, or for their
avionics systems or other components
• Project Contributions to Advance the State of the Art
o We will determine the required information to be displayed in the GCS to support the
development of standards and guidelines through prototyping and simulation
o We will analyze integration of UAS CNPC system and ATC communications to
validate recommendations for regulations and standards
o We will collect and analyze UAS hazard and risk related data to support safety case
recommendations for the development of certification/regulation standards
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6. Relevant Test Environment Technical Challenge
• Barriers Being Addressed by NASA
o Lack of an adaptable, scalable, and schedulable operationally relevant test
environment for evaluating UAS concepts and technologies
 Due to the constraints and safety implications, it is impossible to fully test
UAS capabilities in the NAS
 Due to the requirements for the actual test environment, it would be costly
to locate all of the infrastructure required to validate UAS concepts in one
location or range
• Project Contributions to Advance the State of the Art
o We will develop a Live Virtual Constructive – Distributed Environment (LVC-DE)
linking national assets and capabilities required to conduct high-fidelity testing
 The nodes of this distributed environment will include NASA Dryden, Ames,
Langley, and Glenn Research Centers; the FAA Technical Center; and, various
DoD entities (i.e. Pax River, AFRL, NORTHCOM)
 The nodes can be expanded to include other necessary entities such as NASA
Kennedy Space Center, NMSU, the six test ranges, other DoD ranges, etc.
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7. Subproject Technical Challenge Alignment
Airspace Integration
Validate technologies and procedures
for unmanned aircraft systems to
remain an appropriate distance from
other aircraft, and to safely and
routinely interoperate with NAS and
NextGen Air Traffic Services
Communications
PE
Jim Griner - GRC
Separation Assurance/Sense and
Avoid Interoperability (SSI)
Co-PEs
Eric Mueller - ARC
Maria Consiglio - LaRC
Human Systems
Integration (HSI)
PE
Jay Shively -
ARC
Certification
PE
Kelly Hayhurst
- LaRC
Integrated Test and
Evaluation
Co-PEs
Jim Murphy - ARC
Sam Kim - DFRC
Standards/Regulations
Validate minimum system and
operational performance
standards and certification
requirements and procedures for
unmanned aircraft systems to
safely operate in the NAS
Relevant Test Environment
Develop an adaptable, scalable,
and schedulable relevant test
environment for validating
concepts and technologies for
unmanned aircraft systems to
safely operate in the NAS
PE – Project Engineer
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8. UAS-NAS Project
SSI
Subproject
“Body of Evidence” Development
Interface
RTCA
WG3
Data
Plan
Project RTCA InterfaceProject FAA Interface
FAA
UASIO
Data
Plan
Test
Requirements
UAS-NAS Project
“Body of Evidence” Development
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9. Body of Evidence
Realization, Evaluation, and Transition
• Continuous FAA & RTCA Involvement
(Right Research, Right Methods, Right Deliverables)
IHITL
Results
Readiness
Decisions
Requirements
FT3
Results
Readiness
Decisions
Requirements
FT4
Results
Readiness
Decisions
Requirements
Separation Assurance/Sense and Avoid Interoperability
Human Systems Integration
Communications
… Spectrum Studies, Candidate Communication Technologies, Prototype radio Flight Test, Simulations, Security Assessments …
… Candidate Displays, Part-task HITL simulations, Scenario Development, Continuous Guideline Development…
… Model Development, Fast-time and HITL Simulations, Scenario Development, Continuous Algorithm Improvement …
Body of
Evidence
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
Report
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PT-1 PT-2 PT-3 MR-1 PT-4FM-1 PT-5 PT-6FM-2
A Fast-1 L Fast-1 A HITL-1 A Fast-2 L Fast-2 L HITL-1 A Fast-3
Ch-1 Ch-2 Comm-1 Comm-2 FT Radio FT Sat-1 FT Sat-2 Comm-3 Comm-4 Lg Scale Impact

10. SSI Technical Activities
Augmented the Airspace Concept Evaluation System (ACES) to model UAS operations
and sense-and-avoid systems in nationwide gate-to-gate ATC simulations
Documented NASA
UAS-NAS integration
concepts according to
• mission planning
• trajectory-based
operations
• separation assurance
• sense-and-avoid
Results being published in Air Traffic Control Quarterly Special UAS Edition
(May/June 2013)
Showed slow-speed UAS may have
less impact on existing traffic than
faster UAS
17 new
unmanned
aircraft
types
Ground control
station, pilot,
comm. link, SAA
surveillance and
algorithms
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11. SSI Technical Activities (cont.)
Controller in the Loop Simulation Software Capability
• Sense and Avoid (SAA) implementation concept developed and published
• Sense and Avoid-Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (SAA-TCAS)
interoperability analytical model developed and implemented
• Control/Communication delay and UA performance models Implemented
• Simulation capability developed and demonstrated
• Controller in the loop experiment underway for data collection in FY13-14
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12. HSI Technical Activities
First Part Task Simulation: An Examination of Baseline Compliance
The part task sim, which ran in Feb-March 2012, utilized Multiple UAS Simulator (MUSIM)
and the Cockpit Situation Display (CSD) to achieve two main objectives:
1. Examine baseline compliance of UAS operations in the current airspace system
2. Examine the effects of introducing a traffic display into a UAS ground control station
(GCS) on pilot performance, workload and situation awareness
Main results/conclusions:
• Potential benefits to both Pilots and Controllers when a traffic display is present in the
GCS evidence by significantly higher pilot situational awareness (SA) on several
dimensions and significantly lower workload for pilots when communicating with ATC
• ATC reported appropriate and immediate compliance by UAS pilots, and comparable
levels of perceived workload and safety controlling their sector
Pilot SA
Pilot Workload
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2

13. Communications Technical Activities
First Air-Ground Channel Propagation Tests
Ground verification testing, followed by a test flight in the airspace northwest of
Cleveland during the week of Nov 19, 2012. Two additional flights were conducted
on Nov 26, 2012 and Dec 5, 2012.
Data is currently being analyzed, before flight testing is initiated at other ground site
locations.
L
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LOS + Ground Reflection + Multipath
CIR— TDL Model
From the collected Power Delay Profile data,
statistical channel models will be developed for
nine different environmental locations.
LOSLOS
Ground
Reflection Multipath
LOS
Flight tracks during data
collection on Dec 5, 2012
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14. Communications Technical Activities (cont.)
Initial results from Dec 5, 2012 flight
0.5 1 1.5 2
x 10
4
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
180
Tx-Rx distance (meter)
PathLoss(dB)
Free Space
Vertical Flat
Horizontal Flat
Vertical Curved
Horizontal Curved
0.5 1 1.5 2
x 10
4
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
Tx-Rx distance (meter)
PathLoss(dB)
Free Space
Vertical Flat
Horizontal Flat
Vertical Curved
Horizontal Curved
Signal loss (as indicated by the peaks) as well as signal gain (as indicated by the troughs) is
observed, due to the arrival of a combination of line of sight, ground reflection, and multipath
signals with different phases at the receiver at the same time.
Understanding the environmental effects on the propagation of the two UAS communication
bands is critical to the development of UAS control communication systems which can be
certified for use in the NAS.
C-band
Path loss vs. Tx-Rx distance for analytical 2 ray model
L-band
Perfect Free-
Space Loss
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15. Certification Technical Activities
Draft Report on Perspectives on Unmanned Aircraft Classification for
Civil Airworthiness Standards
Documents the subproject’s identification and examination of different approaches
to classification of unmanned aircraft for the purpose of assigning airworthiness
standards.
Identifies issues and implications for various approaches to UAS classification for
airworthiness certification
Observations:
• UAS classification for airworthiness
certification is complicated (more so
than obvious)
 Because much of the basis for existing
aircraft categories is not directly
applicable to UAS
• Most UAS classification systems include
operational dimensions and other
factors in addition to weight
 This implies that some classification
aspects for UAS may be different from
those used for manned aircraft
Aircraft class + weight largely determines
airworthiness standards for manned aircraft today
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16. IT&E Technical Activities
• Integrated a commercial off the shelf (COTS)
(Garmin GDL-90) ADS-B onto a large UAS
(Ikhana MQ-9)
o Full ADS-B Out and In functionality
o Unprecedented traffic situational awareness to UAS
pilots
• Ikhana flight tests (Series 1) completed Mar 15
and 20 for ADS-B Out and May 8 and 11 for
ADS-B In
o Collected ADS-B “as installed” performance flight
test data
o Verified ADS-B Out met FAA Advisory Circular (AC)
20-165 for ADS-B Out equipage
o Valuable FAA Tech Center support with validated
data analysis tools
• System Requirements Definition
o Completed the System Requirements Review (SRR)
for an IT&E UAS Surrogate on Nov 29
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Ikhana flight path as tracked by the
national ITT ADS-B Surveillance
Network
Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) Integration

17. IT&E Technical Activities (cont.)
• Leveraged existing LVC-DE infrastructure
o Established a gateway at DFRC to connect to
the LVC environment
o Distributed data to Cockpit Situation Displays
(CSDs) and to Air Traffic Control (ATC)
workstations
o Integrated Ikhana Pilot Simulator
o Established connection to the Flight Monitor
Server live surveillance data feed at the FAA
Tech Center
• Flight tests (series 1) completed May 8 and
11
o Verified data exchange of live, virtual, and
constructive traffic information between all
participants
o Verified preliminary voice communications
network
o Informed the Team of refinements needed to
more accurately time-tag and record data
• System Requirements Definition
o Completed the System Requirements Review
(SRR) for the LVC-DE core connectivity
architecture on Dec 12
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Live Virtual Constructive Distributed Environment (LVC-DE)

18. Stakeholders
Partnerships and Collaborations
Aviation Safety
Program
Airspace Systems
Program
Foreign
Organizations
Academia
Industry
Science Mission
Directorate
UAS Integration in the NAS Project
Standards
Organizations
Other Government
Organizations and
FFRDCs
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