TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Air Platform, Ground/Sea Vehicles, Space Platforms

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMA-263

OBJECTIVE: Develop and demonstrate autonomous collision avoidance and auto-pilot guidance algorithms for small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), in the teir I/II classes, enabling safe flight operations in airspace shared with manned aircraft or other UAS. The autonomy capability shall include the ability to evaluate situations and determine best maneuvers to enable mission accomplishment and safety of flight/compliance with FARs regarding rules of the road..

DESCRIPTION: Federal Agency stakeholders recently agreed that a lack of critical mass of small business involvement and innovation impedes the future of UAS industry[1] in the United States. As such, the cost of small UAVs remains high due to a lack of commercialization. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps need to be able to safely operate UAVs in the National Airspace System (NAS) for a variety of missions. These include, but are not limited to: training and certification of operators, test and development of advanced UAV components, transport of UAS between facilities, and support of USCG/DHS homeland security missions. Currently, these operations a limited to restricted airspace only or under very limited COAs. Furthermore, the Navy and Marine Corps are continually expanding their use of UAVs to supplement manned systems capabilities. As such, in many cases it is desirable to operate small, tactical-class UAVs in common airspace with manned aircraft safely. Additionally, other non-DoD government agencies have potential UAS missions: NASA � for performing aeronautics and atmospheric science research; NOAA � for environmental monitoring, hurricane watch and research; DOE � for monitoring and security of remote and/or potentially dangerous installations; and DHS � in support of Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and federal law enforcement operations. Furthermore, state and local agencies such as police, search and rescue, and fire fighting units are potential users of UAS technologies.
ONR wishes to apply the SBIR program to facilitate commercial applications of small UAS. This will increase the utility of the technology area, accelerate its development and drive down the cost of this technology for DoD. Commercial and civil government applications are currently very limited as an unlimited airworthiness certificate is not possible due to safety of flight concerns (in airspace shared with manned aircraft). Other consumer applications could include, but are not limited to, agricultural surveillance and mapping, oil pipeline and powerline surveillance, and news gathering. These industries could benefit from routinely employing small UAS in support of their operations.
A number of technology milestones must still be achieved before UAVs can be seamlessly integrated into the NAS. One of these is the development of a reliable guidance system that will autonomously provide both separation assurance and collision avoidance with other aircraft, while complying with federally regulations governing operations in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace.

The emphasis in this topic is the development of the autonomy algorithms and interface to UAV autopilot systems. This is not focused on individual supporting technologies such as or sensors or autopilots. Autopilot technologies were developed/matured through the SBIR/STTR programs investment from 2001-2004. Sense and avoid sensor technologies are under development in in ongoing FY07 STTR program.

Avoidance strategies can be classified in two major groups: 1) separation assurance, which deals with scenarios involving larger separation distances and time to minimum separation on the order of at least several minutes; and 2) collision avoidance, which involves scenarios where separation distances and the time to minimum separation are much smaller. In both scenarios, the autonomous behavior of the overall system should be compliant with applicable federally mandated regulations and currently evolving UAS-specific regulations. Additionally, in case 1), the system should optimize for a return to mission profile or accomplishment.

PHASE I: Develop an autonomous collision avoidance system, consisting of algorithms and processing, with the appropriate SWaP (size, weight and power) and cost for USN/USMC tier I and tier II levels of UAS. As inputs, the system will utilize detect/sense system data from collision avoidance sense system, flight dynamics information from the UAS auto-pilot, and mission profile/priorities information from a planning/control segment. Demonstrate the proposed system�s potential performance through a series of high-fidelity multi-aircraft/UAS simulations of collision avoidance and HITL-based testing. Use of typical small UAV autopilots and airframe performance (such as a piccolo family autopilot and silver fox UAV) is required. Simulation should be adaptable for multiple platforms/flight dynamics. Sensing modes available should be any or all of the following: radar, EO-IR, or acoustic on-board sensors and/or participation in the ADS-B datalink. Simulated inputs of appropriate temporal and spatial fidelity will be used. Determination of performance of combinations of sensing modalities for best results in terms of safety of flight, SWaP, cost and mission accomplishment is an expected outcome of the effort.

PHASE II: Design and build a prototype system and demonstrate with an operational UAS equipped with a collision avoidance sensor capability. Perform initial flight test experiments for system evaluation. Provide assessment of performance.

PHASE III: This effort will transition to Navy/USMC tier I and tier II programs with operational requirements for beyond line of sight or over the horizon surveillance and targeting (surface action groups that do not have organic air assets and Navy/USMC expeditionary or riverine forces).

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: An ultimate aim of this effort is to enable small UAS airworthiness certification for autonomous flight in the National Aerospace System. These systems are much less costly than Predator/Global Hawk class UAS and are not intended to be operated/flown by rated aircrew. The certification of small UAS for autonomous flight for commercial work (mapping, pipeline/powerline patrol, etc.) work enable support a business model which would commercialize these assets and greatly reduce the cost to DoD. The algorithms and approaches developed and validated under this program will lead to safe operation of small UAS in the National Airspace System. Additionally, by meeting Swap/cost for tier I and II type UAS, it also would bring autonomous collision avoidance sensing into affordability for general aviation civil aircraft also.

REFERENCES:
1. AIAA Infotech@Aerospace 2007 Conference at Rohnert Park CA.

2. Topic Writers Keith Krapels, Harold Szu ONR Code 312, 703-696-5787,[email protected].

KEYWORDS: Autonomous; Guidance; Collision avoidance; tier I, tier II; small UAV; Safety of flight

TPOC: Keith Krapels
Phone: (703)696-5787
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
2nd TPOC: Harold Szu
Phone: (240)482-6889
Fax: (703)696-1331
Email: [email protected]
3rd TPOC: Pamela Lucas
Phone: (703)696-2496
Fax:
Email: [email protected]

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

DoD Notice:   Between November 13 and December 9, 2007, you may talk directly with the Topic Author(s) to ask technical questions about the topics. Their contact information is listed above. For reasons of competitive fairness, direct communication between proposers and topic authors is not allowed starting December 10, 2007, when DoD begins accepting proposals for this solicitation.

However, proposers may still submit written questions about solicitation topics through the DoD's SBIR/STTR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS), in which the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing until the solicitation closes. All proposers are advised to monitor SITIS (08.1 Q&A) during the solicitation period for questions and answers, and other significant information, relevant to the SBIR 08.1 topic under which they are proposing.

If you have general questions about DoD SBIR program, please contact the DoD SBIR Help Desk at (866) 724-7457 or email weblink.