A Unified Approach to Separation Assurance and Collision Avoidance for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Advanced Air Mobility

Abstract

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are the pillars of the aerial mobility sectors evolution including Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM). UAS implementation is hindered by airspace segregation, which is a safety assessment approach employed to lessen the risk of a mid-air collision between man and unmanned aircraft. To overcome the safety requirements and eliminate airspace segregation, reliable sense-and-avoid systems (SAA) that handles the separation assurance and collision avoidance tasks autonomously are needed. In this research project, we developed a novel SAA system that handles the collision avoidance problem taking into account different error sources from sensors to environmental effects such as wind turbulence. The definition of collision avoidance is also extended to avoid hazardous wake volume during collision evasion, as a wake encounter could lead to a possible crash. A new model for calculating the safe separation distance between aircraft is utilized instead of the overly conservative ICAO standards. Different error sources and hazardous effects are fused together to generate a total avoidance volume, which by evading it ensures that the collision is avoided with a high level of confidence. The generated total avoidance volume encapsulates the hazardous wake volume and uncertainties generated as a result of the stochastic nature of wind gusts. A simulation case study is conducted at the end to assess the functionality of the system in real-life interaction scenarios.

Date of Award	Apr 2023
Original language	American English
Supervisor	Roberto Sabatini (Supervisor)