NASA Begins Fourth Series of UAS Flight Tests
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NASA and its partners, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., Honeywell International and the RTCA Special Committee carried out tests this week that will aid the Federal Aviation Administration as it develops the regulations to allow integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the National Airspace System.
The series of 15 flights and 270 encounters, which occurred April 19, consisted of flying several piloted aircraft — referred to as intruders — into different positions near or around NASA Armstrong’s Predator B remotely piloted aircraft, called Ikhana.
The intruder aircraft included NASA’s B200 King Air, T-34C, GIII, TG-14, Honeywell’s C-90 King Air and the U.S. Air Force’s C-12 King Air. The intruders all functioned as high-speed and low-speed aircraft to verify and validate the requirements of the minimal operational performance standards for UAS.
The test series leveraged lessons learned and risk reduction from the last tests to occur, while continuing to introduce new capabilities and technology refinements in support of validating the detect-and-avoid systems. DAA systems allowed Ikhana to detect intruders and either alert its pilot on the ground or fly a programmed maneuver to avoid collision.
Each intruder was equipped with different systems for operations in the NAS. They represented aircraft equipped with cooperative systems, such as a transponder, as well as noncooperative aircraft, which have no equipment and required an air-to-air radar to detect and track.
“Our engineers have generated a very detailed and complex flight test plan that integrates all of the variables needed to execute this flight test,” said Heather Maliska, UAS-NAS deputy manager at Armstrong before the flights occurred. “The flight test plan coordinates the DAA systems, intruder aircraft equipment and speeds, design of encounter geometries, and the number of intruder aircraft needed to conduct the encounter in order to meet NASA’s and the community’s requirements.”
To prepare for the flight tests, engineers completed ground testing and validated software. Following ground testing, crews conducted check-out flights to ensure the systems work in flight and that researchers get the data they need.
Those particular data retrieved from the flight tests provide valuable information to researchers for a future round of flight tests as well as play an important role in evolving the technologies that are necessary for UAS to fly in the NAS, according to a press release by the agency.
“NASA is providing critical data to support the ongoing efforts to develop technical standards for both sensor data links,” says Paul McDuffee, co-chair of RTCA’s Special Committee 228.
