PAE ISR recently hosted a joint kickoff meeting with NASA and the FAA as part of the UAS integration in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project.

During the meeting, which took place at the Pendleton Unmanned Aerial Range, PAE ISR presented an overview of its solutions package for the 2020 program, and conducted a flight demonstration of its Resolute Eagle UAS.

“The program kickoff meeting and flight demonstration of the Resolute Eagle's capabilities provided the NASA SIO team a path forward for the 2020 flight demonstration and future safe integration of the Resolute Eagle UAS into the National Airspace,” says Jake Jacobs, PAE ISR chief technology officer and principal investigator for the NASA program.

In Oct. 2018, PAE ISR was one of three organizations selected by NASA to conduct a UAS flight demonstration of cooperative and non-cooperative detect and avoid technologies in the NAS by July of 2020. The demonstration is a partnership between NASA and industry, with a great amount of coordination through the FAA.

NASA and PAE ISR will collaborate to address the issues that prevent routine commercial UAS operations today, including development, integration, and certification of UAS and avionics.

According to the involved entities, the SIO activity will culminate in several flight demonstrations in 2020 that focus on UAS missions occurring at altitudes greater than 500 feet above ground level. The demonstrations will include integrated detect and avoid and command and control technologies.

The results from the demonstrations will help the industry partners compile the necessary artifacts and other data to support regulatory compliance of their vehicles and systems. 

“The data results from this program are vital, not only for the full integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the National Airspace,” says Chico Moline, PAE ISR president. 

“But, for the positioning of UAS as a daily reality for the mainstream consumer. We look forward to collaborating with NASA and the FAA in developing the concept of operations that will drive this industry forward in the years and decades to come.”