In late May, the Nevada UAS Test Site and its NASA partners used five different UAS to demonstrate several different operational scenarios, including aerial survey operations and parachute initiated emergency supply deliveries. 

The UAS were flown as a part of the specific NASA Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) missions, and thanks to “strategically placed visual observers (VO) and sophisticated Command and control (C2), communication, detect, and avoid technologies,” the UAS were also flown beyond the pilot’s visual line of sight.

“Our Nevada NASA partners did an amazing job in extending the body of airspace management and sense and avoid knowledge under the UTM and across the UAS Industry,” says Chris Walach, Director of the FAA-designated Nevada UAS Test Site.

“The National Campaign data provided to NASA from our two-week operation will go a long way toward advancing the UTM for the FAA and the UAS Industry.”

NASA and its partners are currently in the process of testing the next, more complex version of its UTM technologies, using live UAS at six different UAS Test Sites across the United States.

The testing is a part of a three-week campaign known as Technology Capability Level 2 (TCL2) National Campaign, which is focused on flying small UAS beyond a pilot’s visual line of sight, over “sparsely populated areas” near six of the FAA Test Sites.

Line of sight operations were included in tests for TCL1 in April 2016. The first phase of TCL2 demonstrations began last October.

TCL3 and TCL4 will each involve flying UAS “with specific tasks over increasingly populated areas.” Those demonstrations are scheduled for 2018 and beyond.