Without the capability to sense and avoid other air traffic, UAS flights are limited to flight operations within restricted and warning areas unless the proponent obtains a Certificate of Authorization (COA) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As part of the requirement to fly in the NAS, UAS need to perform Terminal Area Operations. Terminal Area Operations are intended to facilitate UAS operations in a confined volume of airspace near a regional terminal area or near a restricted airspace. To better support safe UAS operations in the terminal area, integrating data from the ABSAA and GBSAA sensors increases the probability of maintaining safe separation in this more-dense environment. Three obvious advantages of combine data from the ABSAA and GBSAA sensors are 1) the difference in technologies; 2) the differences in locations; 3) possibility of cross sensor cueing. Challenges associated with fusing the data from the GBSAA and the ABSAA are coordinate systems, reference points, latencies and data rates, and disparate data formats and data content.
Benefits: The results provided by this Phase I SBIR program will demonstrate the feasibility of using a combined airborne and ground-based SAA data to provide a complete airspace picture in the terminal area. A system design and architecture will be provided to the Air Force at the conclusion of the Phase I effort.
Keywords: RPA, Sense and Avoid, Ground-Based, Airborne, Collision Avoidance, Data Fusion, Sensors, Terminal Area
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