Safe Autonomous Flight Environment (SAFE50) for the Notional Last “50 ft” of Operation of “55 lb” Class of UAS

Abstract

The most difficult phase of small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) deployment is autonomous operations below the notional 50 ft in urban landscapes. Understanding the feasibility of safely flying sUAS autonomously below 50 ft is a game changer for many civilian applications. This paper outlines three areas of research currently underway which address key challenges for flight in the urban landscape. These are: (1) Off-line and On-board wind estimation and accommodation; (2) Real-time trajectory planning via characterization of obstacles using a LIDAR; (3) On-board information fusion for real-time decision-making and safe trajectory generation.

Uncertainty Quantification Framework for Autonomous System Tracking and Health Monitoring

“…The effect of growing interest in low-altitude operations is a number of research activities on automated and autonomous UAVs, including new design, reliability, efficiency, and autonomous functions. Examples of such works can be found in (Hoffmann, Huang, Waslander, & Tomlin, 2007) for flight dynamics and control, (Langelaan, Alley, & Neidhoefer, 2011;Glasheen, Pinto, Steiner, & Frew, 2019) for wind field estimation, (Krish nakumar et al, 2017) for safety of low-altitude UAVs, and (Balaban et al, 2017) for dynamic routing and decision making. More generally, interests in autonomous vehicles also generated a number of system-level research on the safety of the national airspace, as in (Liu & Goebel, 2018).…”

A Modeling, Simulation and Control Framework for Small Unmanned Multicopter Platforms in Urban Environments

“…m_posENU_ft [3] m_altMSL_ft m_altAGL_ft m_eulerRPY_rad [3] m_rateEulerRPY_radps [3] m_headingTrue_rad m_indicatedAirspeed_kts m_linearVel_fps[3] m_flightPathAngle_rad m_latitude_rad m_longitude_rad m_motorSpeed_radps [8] m_motorCurrent_A [8] A core flight sensor being utilized in this project is a 3D scanning Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) system. Support for simulation and in flight is shown in the following configuration diagram.…”

“…HIS paper presents the modeling, simulation, and control architecture for general multicopter aircraft, supporting research into autonomy, guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C). NASA's SAFE50 Project is currently conducting preliminary investigations into high-density low-altitude unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operations in densely-populated urban environments [1][2][3][4] . Several studies anticipate these environments to have a high economic growth potential and will see high anticipated demand for use 5,6 .…”

Challenges With Obstacle Data for Manned and Unmanned Aviation

“…These delivery drones will need to ascend/descend in very close proximity to a large number of man-made structures such as buildings, cell-towers, and high-voltage electrical power cables. The above flight phase of ascend/descend will take place below the notional 50 ft predominately in an urban landscape which makes this phase the most challenging for autonomous drones (Krishnakumar et al, 2017) and (Kopardekar et al, 2016). Drones therefore will operate amongst man-made static structures as well as dynamic obstacles such as automobiles, and this dynamic aspect increases with the level of detail.…”