Sagetech Avionics, working with the University of North Dakota ( UND) Aerospace Foundation, intends to develop and produce a very low size, weight and power (SWaP) detect and avoid (DAA) solution suitable for use in Group 2 or larger UAS, UAM aircraft, with civil and military applicability. The envisioned solution contains integrated transponder and ACAS-Xu functionality for cooperative target tracking and avoidance, and will be integrated with air-to-air radar for a complete DAA solution. Sagetech's low SWaP MXS provides Mode A/C/S transponder functionality, along with ADS-B In and Out, in a hardware platform the size of a deck of playing cards and weighing a third of a pound. Another version of the same hardware platform has been modified to perform Mode A, C, and S interrogations, providing reply data and range-to-target based on omni-directional transmissions. An off-the-shelf small radar system such as the Echodyne EchoFlight, or Fortem's TruView radar will be utilized to provide non-cooperative target input to the DAA solution. Tracks from these sensors will be merged and correlated in a track fusion module, housed within the current architecture of one of the MX-based components listed above. The final product is expected to be less than one pound and consume less than 25W power, not including the air-to-air radar components. Phase I will examine a key aspect of the feasibility of this project: the ability to provide an acceptable safety case utilizing omni-directional interrogation of cooperative targets as part of the ACAS-Xu solution, while not overloading the 1090MHz spectrum. Sagetech Avionics and UND Aerospace Foundation will determine appropriate methods and algorithms, through analysis and/or UAS test flights, for this method of cooperative target tracking.
