Unmanned Aerial Traffic Management System Architecture for U-Space In-Flight Services

Abstract

This paper presents a software architecture for Unmanned aerial system Traffic Management (UTM). The work is framed within the U-space ecosystem, which is the European initiative for UTM in the civil airspace. We propose a system that focuses on providing the required services for automated decision-making during real-time threat management and conflict resolution, which is the main gap in current UTM solutions. Nonetheless, our software architecture follows an open-source design that is modular and flexible enough to accommodate additional U-space services in future developments. In its current implementation, our UTM solution is capable of tracking the aerial operations and monitoring the airspace in real time, in order to perform in-flight emergency management and tactical deconfliction. We show experimental results in order to demonstrate the UTM system working in a realistic simulation setup. For that, we performed our tests with the UTM system and the operators of the aerial aircraft located at remote locations with the consequent communication issues, and we showcased that the system was capable of managing in real time the conflicting events in two different use cases.

Pathways to Unsegregated Sharing of Airspace: Views of the Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Industry

“…McCarthy et al [19] investigated contemporary shared airspace research including initiatives in both the USA and Europe, and identified proposed approaches to expedite UTM solutions for urban areas such as drone certification schemes, collaborative and democratic airspace design, development of scalable traffic management solutions, and the replacement of humans with machines in operating and coordinating drone traffic. Capitán et al [12] reported the development of a software architecture for UTM that can provide real-time monitoring of airspace to enable tactical de-confliction and management of emergencies. Guan et al [20] investigated collision avoidance and the management of separation within UTM including features such as prediction and assessment of risk, safe separation standards, and systems for detection and avoidance.…”

“…The expansion of the drone industry is taking place within the context of a wider aviation community historically dominated by the operation of traditional crewed aircraft, producing competing demands on the finite supply of usable airspace. There is an increasingly urgent requirement, therefore, to consider methods by which drones can be integrated harmoniously and efficiently into an existing airspace system that has evolved to suit crewed aircraft including over the longer distances that will be necessary if widespread and routine drone logistics operations are to be established [9][10][11][12].…”

Investigation of Merge Assist Policies to Improve Safety of Drone Traffic in a Constrained Urban Airspace

“…Some have suggested single altitude lane-based approaches that primarily investigated trajectory scheduling algorithms in a way to tackle strategic conflict management [14,15]. While others have focused on conceptual design studies into the use of airway routes over buildings, railways and roads for the city of Singapore [16,17], a majority of the work has been centred on policy-based studies for Europe's advanced air mobility traffic management program, U-Space [18][19][20][21]. However, the common thread in these studies is that they are mainly limited to very low traffic densities of drones or even single drone flight operations.…”

Threat Management Methodology for Unmanned Aerial Systems Operating in the U-Space

“…In these U-space operations, while UAS are flying, unexpected events or threats might occur, leading to dangerous situations. Therefore, as a result of the GAUSS project, we proposed a generic software architecture [19] for autonomous threat management in U-space, providing the required U-space services for tactical deconfliction and real-time decision-making. In [19], we described the overall architecture with the different U-space services involved, as well as preliminary simulated experiments for validation.…”

“…Therefore, as a result of the GAUSS project, we proposed a generic software architecture [19] for autonomous threat management in U-space, providing the required U-space services for tactical deconfliction and real-time decision-making. In [19], we described the overall architecture with the different U-space services involved, as well as preliminary simulated experiments for validation. In this article, we extend our previous work by describing the specifics of a novel methodology for autonomous threat management in multi-UAS operations, fully integrated within the aforementioned U-space software architecture.…”