Congress ordered the FAA to integrate UAS into US airspace, one of the most complex and busy airspaces in the world, by 2015. However, this deadline passed without meeting congress’ vision and, to this day, is years from achieving the goal of routine UAS flights. The FAA’s UAS roadmap identified the development of minimum standards of sense and avoid as a regulatory requirement (UAS Roadmap, 2013). Although the FAA’s regulations have lagged behind other countries like Canada and Japan, the FAA doesn’t have much room to maneuver because sense and avoid technology needs to improve in order to facilitate a safe integration into US airspace. The CEO of Volt Aerial Robotics Company, Rory Paul, says that there still isn’t a low-cost sense and avoid system applicable to small UAS and large aircraft (Maddox, 2015). William Semke, from University of North Dakotas mechanical engineering department says that 7-10 years is more realistic for sense and avoid technology to be where it needs to be.
While companies like DJI, Intel, and Parrot have released small unmanned systems capable of obstacle avoidance, the technology isn’t perfect: “GPSs and barometers aren’t full-proof—even outdoors—and can’t be relied upon when navigating indoors. Ultrasonic altimeters have very limited range. Optical flow sensors require good lighting and textured surfaces, and camera vision are still a work in progress and tend to be processing-intensive” (Snow, 2016).
In 2015 NASA, Honeywell, General Atomics alongside FAA representatives tested the Ikhana aircraft equipped with “GA-ASI’s air-to-air radar system, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II and a sense-and-avoid processor that is hosting Honeywell’s sensor fusion software. Also onboard are algorithms that would provide recommendations on how to stay clear of the traffic an unmanned aircraft would encounter in commercial airspace”. The idea is allowing an unmanned system to detect aircraft that are equipped with communicable technologies, and, more importantly, those that are not; obstacles it would otherwise be blind to that could potentially meet in a collision. Data was collected from 170 encounters with the Ikhana aircraft with 50 flight hours. These tests were successful in many ways and provided many firsts for the industry regarding sense and avoid (Merlin, 2015).
References:
Insinna, Valerie. "Military, Industry Racing To Create Sense-And-Avoid Systems". Nationaldefensemagazine.org. N.p., 2014. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Maddox, Stephen. "Harvard National Security Journal – Drones In The U.S. National Airspace System: A Safety And Security Assessment". Harvardnsj.org. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Merlin, Peter. "NASA, FAA, Industry Conduct Initial Sense-And-Avoid Test". NASA. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
Snow, Colin. "Sense And Avoid For Drones Is No Easy Feat". Drone Analyst. N.p., 2016. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.
UAS Roadmap. 2013. "Integration Of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) In The National Airspace System (NAS) Roadmap". https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/uas_roadmap_2013. N.p., 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2016.