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A special issue of Aerospace (ISSN 2226-4310). This special issue belongs to the section "Air Traffic and Transportation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (7 May 2020) | Viewed by 48238

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Cristina Barrado

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Guest Editor

Computer Architecture Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Interests: unmanned aircraft systems (UAV); airspace management; avionics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned aircraft (UA) are the new revolution of the airspace. Large UA can be found flying above Class A airspace, but also, with adequate separation measures, in IFR common flight levels (FL). Today, these aircraft need special permissions, segregated areas or long certification of safety processes, which limit their business model to scale. On the opposite side, many small and cheap UA are occupying the airspace bellow VFR. Being available at very low cost, even as toys, most of them fly without knowledge of the civil aviation authorities. They are used for leisure, but also for business related with infrastructure inspection, precision agriculture or search-and-rescue. Some recent events have shown that UA can be also a threat when close to airports. Legislation to regulate UA access to the airspace is being developed all across the world. More recently, a number of initiatives have begun to address new traffic management systems for UA. The final objective is to make the sharing of the airspace between manned and unmanned aircraft possible in a smooth and safe manner. The challenges are huge and involve a number of actors and technologies: the air space service providers, the communication frequencies and protocols, the satellite-based navigation, the cell-phone capabilities, the surveillance of aircraft flying at very low altitudes, the aircraft-to-aircraft direct communication, the automation and digitization of the air traffic management systems, the autonomous decision systems and, of course, the long list of current airspace users.

Prof. Dr. Cristina Barrado
Guest Editor

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 7362 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Procedures for the Integration of Drones into the Airspace Based on U-Space Services

by Víctor Alarcón, Manuel García, Francisco Alarcón, Antidio Viguria, Ángel Martínez, Dominik Janisch, José Joaquín Acevedo, Ivan Maza and Aníbal Ollero

Aerospace 2020, 7(9), 128; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7090128 - 01 Sep 2020

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 5059

Abstract

A safe integration of drones into the airspace is fundamental to unblock the potential of drone applications. U-space is the drone traffic management solution for Europe, intended to handle a large number of drones in the airspace, especially at very low level (VLL). This paper presents the procedures we have designed and tested in real flights in the SAFEDRONE European project to pave the way for a safe integration of drones into the airspace using U-space services. We include three important aspects: Design of procedures related to no-fly zones, ensure separation with manned aircraft, and autonomous non-cooperative detect-and-avoid (DAA) technologies. A specific U-space architecture has been designed and implemented for flight campaigns with up to eight drones with different configurations and a manned aircraft. From this experience, specific recommendations about procedures to exit and avoiding no-fly zones are presented. Additionally, it has been concluded that the use of surveillance information of manned aircraft will allow a more efficient use of the airspace while maintaining a proper safety level, avoiding the creation of large geofence areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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14 pages, 16350 KiB

Open AccessArticle

ADS-B Like UTM Surveillance Using APRS Infrastructure

by Ying-Hong Lin, Chin E. Lin and Hsu-Chan Chen

Aerospace 2020, 7(7), 100; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7070100 - 21 Jul 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 4144

Abstract

Automatic packet reporting system (APRS) is selected as a candidate for automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) like solution for unmanned aircraft system traffic management (UTM). The APRS on-board unit (OBU) at 0.5 W radio power and a proper ground transceiver station (GTS) deployment together makes up the infrastructure for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance. The airborne APRS OBU, designed and built using an available LightAPRS module, and the GTS to relay received data into the UTM Cloud is developed in this study. By system integration, the APRS OBU reports position data and flight data periodically to UTM Cloud. This paper presents the development of the ADS-B like operation for UTM using APRS. To avoid communication jamming by HAMs, the adopted APRS shifts its carrying frequency from 144.64 MHz to 144.61 MHz. In addition, the data period is tuned to around 10 s to test its functional capability. The APRS OBU downlinks 90 bytes of surveillance data onto the UTM cloud using the Internet, including position and flight data from Pixhawk flight controller (FC). A series of system performance verifications are conducted to examine APRS ADS-B like reliability and continuity with coverage limit. Through 19 flight tests, the GTS collected 1330 packets of data out of 1331 transmitted from the APRS OBU. Each data packet has the complete 90 bytes for surveillance with position and six degree-of-freedom (DoF) flight data on the UTM cloud. The APRS GTS deployment, with a low rate of missing data, covers a 40 km radius at the specific frequency of 144.61 MHz. The test results verify the functional capability of APRS to support an ADS-B like for UTM in Taiwan. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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29 pages, 6937 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fundamental Elements of an Urban UTM

by Tim McCarthy, Lars Pforte and Rebekah Burke

Aerospace 2020, 7(7), 85; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7070085 - 27 Jun 2020

Cited by 26 | Viewed by 8632

Abstract

Urban airspace environments present exciting new opportunities for delivering drone services to an increasingly large global market, including: information gathering; package delivery; air-taxi services. A key challenge is how to model airspace environments over densely populated urban spaces, coupled with the design and development of scalable traffic management systems that may need to handle potentially hundreds to thousands of drone movements per hour. This paper explores the background to Urban unmanned traffic management (UTM), examining high-level initiatives, such as the USA’s Unmanned Air Traffic (UTM) systems and Europe’s U-Space services, as well as a number of contemporary research activities in this area. The main body of the paper describes the initial research outputs of the U-Flyte R&D group, based at Maynooth University in Ireland, who have focused on developing an integrated approach to airspace modelling and traffic management platforms for operating large drone fleets over urban environments. This work proposes pragmatic and innovative approaches to expedite the roll-out of these much-needed urban UTM solutions. These approaches include the certification of drones for urban operation, the adoption of a collaborative and democratic approach to designing urban airspace, the development of a scalable traffic management and the replacement of direct human involvement in operating drones and coordinating drone traffic with machines. The key fundamental elements of airspace architecture and traffic management for busy drone operations in urban environments are described together with initial UTM performance results from simulation studies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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22 pages, 2424 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Segmented Standard Taxi Routes—A New Way to Integrate Remotely Piloted Aircraft into Airport Surface Traffic

by Michael Finke and Sandro Lorenz

Aerospace 2020, 7(6), 83; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7060083 - 25 Jun 2020

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4001

Abstract

The safe and orderly integration of unmanned aircraft in the airspace is surely among the most difficult challenges to be solved in the near future. However, a safe and fluid traffic management on the ground is not less important and not less challenging, as completely different aspects have to be considered here. Much less work has been done yet to solve this question. In the frame of the project Surface Management Operations (SuMO), a procedural solution has been developed to enable fully integrated unmanned airport ground movements while allowing air traffic controllers to guarantee a safe, orderly and expeditious flow of traffic. This concept is based on the idea of segmented standard taxi routes for unmanned aircraft, while maintaining current procedures for manned aircraft. From 2017 to 2019, a two-stage validation campaign validated this new solution. No concerns regarding safety or human factors issues were revealed. Access and Equity, as well as Interoperability, were found to be very satisfying. A fast time simulation of mixed manned and unmanned traffic, using the proposed solution, was almost as efficient as pure manned traffic and can easily be implemented at medium-size airports. This article provides information about the experimental setup and the conduction of both validations stages, and illustrates obtained results. It closes with a discussion and an outlook. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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20 pages, 7725 KiB

Open AccessArticle

System Operation of Regional UTM in Taiwan

by Chin E. Lin, Pei-Chi Shao and Yu-Yuan Lin

Aerospace 2020, 7(5), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7050065 - 25 May 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 5613

Abstract

The hierarchical unmanned aerial systems (UAS) traffic management (UTM) is proposed for UAS operation in Taiwan. The proposed UTM is constructed using the similar concept of ATM from the transport category aviation system. Based on the airspace being divided by 400 feet of altitude, the RUTM (regional UTM) is managed by the local government and the NUTM (national UTM) by the Civil Aeronautical Administration (CAA). Under construction of the UTM system infrastructure, this trial tests examine the effectiveness of UAV surveillance under 400 feet using automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B)-like on-board units (OBU). The ground transceiver station (GTS) is designed with the adoptable systems. In these implementation tests, five long-range wide area network (LoRa) gateways and one automatic packet reporting system (APRS) I-Gate are deployed to cover the Tainan Metropolitan area. The data rates are set in different systems from 8 to 12 s to prevent from data conflict or congestion. The signal coverage, time delay, data distribution, and data variance in communication are recorded and analyzed for RUTM operation. Data streaming and Internet manipulation are verified with cloud system stability and availability. Simple operational procedures are defined with priority for detect and avoid (DAA) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Mobile communication and Zello broadcasts are introduced and applied to establish controller-to-pilot communication (CPC) for DAA. The UAV flight tests are generally beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) near suburban areas with flight distances to 8 km. On the GTS deployment, six test locations examine communication coverage and effectiveness using ADS-B like OBUs. In system verification, the proposed ADS-B like OBU works well in the UTM infrastructure. The system feasibility is proven with support of receiving data analysis and transceiver efficiency. The trial test supports RUTM in Taiwan for UAV operations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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Review

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37 pages, 964 KiB

Open AccessReview

Review of Conflict Resolution Methods for Manned and Unmanned Aviation

by Marta Ribeiro, Joost Ellerbroek and Jacco Hoekstra

Aerospace 2020, 7(6), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7060079 - 16 Jun 2020

Cited by 37 | Viewed by 7189

Abstract

Current investigations into urban aerial mobility, as well as the continuing growth of global air transportation, have renewed interest in Conflict Detection and Resolution (CD&R) methods. With the new applications of drones, and the implications of a profoundly different urban airspace, new demands are placed on such algorithms, further spurring new research. This paper presents a review of current CR methods for both manned and unmanned aviation. It presents a taxonomy that categorises algorithms in terms of their approach to avoidance planning, surveillance, control, trajectory propagation, predictability assumption, resolution manoeuvre, multi-actor conflict resolution, considered obstacle types, optimization, and method category. More than a hundred CR methods were considered, showing how most work on a tactical, distributed framework. To enable a reliable comparison between methods, this paper argues that an open and ideally common simulation platform, common test scenarios, and common metrics are required. This paper presents an overview of four CR algorithms, each representing a commonly used CR algorithm category. Both manned and unmanned scenarios were tested, through fast-time simulations on an open-source airspace simulation platform. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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Other

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18 pages, 3026 KiB

Open AccessConcept Paper

U-Space Concept of Operations: A Key Enabler for Opening Airspace to Emerging Low-Altitude Operations

by Cristina Barrado, Mario Boyero, Luigi Brucculeri, Giancarlo Ferrara, Andrew Hately, Peter Hullah, David Martin-Marrero, Enric Pastor, Anthony Peter Rushton and Andreas Volkert

Aerospace 2020, 7(3), 24; https://doi.org/10.3390/aerospace7030024 - 07 Mar 2020

Cited by 110 | Viewed by 12522

Abstract

Opening the sky to new classes of airspace user is a political and economic imperative for the European Union. Drone industries have a significant potential for economical growth according to the latest estimations. To enable this growth safely and efficiently, the CORUS project has developed a concept of operations for drones flying in Europe in very low-level airspace, which they have to share that space with manned aviation, and quite soon with urban air mobility aircraft as well. U-space services and the development of smart, automated, interoperable, and sustainable traffic management solutions are presented as the key enabler for achieving this high level of integration. In this paper, we present the U-space concept of operations (ConOps), produced around three new types of airspace volume, called X, Y, and Z, and the relevant U-space services that will need to be supplied in each of these. The paper also describes the reference high-level U-space architecture using the European air traffic management architecture methodology. Finally, the paper proposes the basis for the aircraft separation standards applicable by each volume, to be used by the conflict detection and resolution services of U-space. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management)

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