Collision Avoidance Via Sense and Avoidance

The legislative requirements established by The Federal Aviation Administrations’ policy on UAS collision avoidance cover both operator/pilot and technological requirements. The operator/pilot must operate the UAS safely as stated in the Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Roadmap into the National Airspace System and formally in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations section C.2. Furthermore the Federal Aviation Administration states the actions for operator/pilot must display safe operation practice and knowledge in order to prevent a collision, and meet minimum qualifications as stated by the FAA or the Department of Defense. The summary is stated by the FAA as follows:
At the core of these policies is the concept that each aircraft is flown by a pilot in accordance with required procedures and practices. This same policy applies to UAS. Regulatory standards need to be developed to enable current technology for unmanned aircraft to comply with Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations. (FAA, 2013).

The regulation puts responsibility on the operator/pilot and not solely on the equipment being used in order to ensure Sense and Avoid (SAA) protocol by the UAV.
SAA technology and its components must also meet minimum requirements as stated in Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations C.3 for Ground Based Sense and Avoid and C.4 for Airborne Sense and Avoid. The technological requirements for Sense and Avoidance must meet the minimum requirements stated in Title 14 which are as stated:

SAA system standards must be developed to assure both self-separation and collision avoidance capability for UAS. Interoperability constraints must also be defined for safe and secure interactions between SAA enabled UAS and other airborne and ground-based collision avoidance systems. While SAA may be an independent system, it must be designed to be compatible across other modes (e.g., ATC separation services). (FAA, 2013).

The minimum requirements for SAA technology must allow for separation in order to avoid collision. Equipment must meet Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) as stated in Title 14. Ground Based SAA must meet Minimum Aviation System Performance Standards (MASPS) as regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration to provide the necessary support for both UAV and manned aircraft.

Foreseeable Future Developments according to Coppinger encompass further developments in technology surrounding SAA have been underway and should be implemented by 2020 “Improved secure datalinks, dynamic flightpath replanning and better situational awareness for the remote pilot are technologies that have to be developed for die deployment of unmanned air vehicles in non-segregated airspace by 2020” (Coppinger, 2010).
The amount of funds invested by private industries in Europe as well as the United States continue to advance the goal of unmanned aircraft integration a reality.
Cooperative alignments between companies result in programs such as ASTRAEA which continually improve upon SAA to develop unmanned systems in larger scale aircraft. The continual strides and investments in ASTRAEA further prove SAA technologies success in larger platform aircraft as stated by Lambert Dopping “we spent some 62 million pounds on the program to date ASTRAEA is looking at the technologies, regulatory framework to understand the procedures that will have to be used” (Cobham, 2013).
Another key statement mentioned by Coppinger is the 2015 date used as the implementation for unmanned systems regulations. Although, the most significant regulation didn’t appear until June, 2016 with the Federal Aviation Administration’s introduction of Part 107, for small UAV’s. The continual push for UAV’s integrating into the NAS continues to strive forward as SAA technologies continue to be improved by efforts of private enterprise, corporations and governmental support from other countries.


References

Cobham plc. (2013). ASTRAEA. Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Retrieved from             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tPJtDIet4U&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Coppinger, R. (2010, Jan). UAV path to shared airspace. Flight International, 177, 19.
Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/
225075571? accountid=27203

Federal Aviation Administration. (2013). Integration of Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems
(UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) Roadmap. Retrieved from             https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/uas_roadmap_2013.pdf

Federal Aviation Administration News. (2016). Summary of Small Unmanned Aircraft 
Rule (Part 107). Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/uas/media/Part_107_Summary.pdf


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