Last November, a consortium representing French industry, government and academia completed a series of 20 flight tests that demonstrated the ability of the one-metric-ton Patroller remotely piloted air system (RPAS) to perform approaches to a mid-sized commercial airfield, Toulouse-Blagnac Airport.
The Patroller flight tests capped the Operational Demonstration of RPAS in European Airspace (ODREA) project, one of nine projects the Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) Joint Undertaking, or SJU, selected in 2013 to study the feasibility of introducing RPAS into non-segregated airspace alongside manned aircraft. Those projects, supported by the SJU with €4 million ($4.48 million) in co-financing, conclude this year.
ODREA’s objectives were to define and validate RPAS procedures for standard instrument departure and standard arrival routes (SIDs and STARs), demonstrate the capability to integrate an unmanned aircraft into managed air traffic, and refine its capability to conduct missions in the event of a lost communications link or detect-and-avoid awareness. Through simulations and actual flight tests of the Patroller with a safety pilot aboard and “intruder” aircraft from Muret-Lherm Airport in southern France, and involving traffic patterns there and at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, testers proved the feasibility of manned and unmanned aircraft operating together.
Rockwell Collins France coordinated the ODREA project. Sagem (Hall 2a A228/A252), which developed the optionally-piloted Patroller from the German Stemme S15 motor glider, provided the RPAS. Sagem said it demonstrated “a complete anti-collision function” on Patroller using a combination of sensors, including an infrared optronic device, automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast receiver, “and an automatic risk collision estimation and avoidance flightpath generation” algorithm running in an onboard computer.
Also participating in ODREA were France’s DGAC civil aviation authority, air navigation service provider DSNA and the National Civil Aviation School (ENAC). The group conducted a final workshop in Toulouse on March 31.
Other SJU-sponsored RPAS demonstration projects involved industry and government partners from Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. The DSNA coordinated a second project in France–Testing Emergency Procedures in Approach and En Route Integration Simulation (TEMPAERIS)–which also involved Airbus Defense and Space, Airbus ProSky (Hall Concorde 17), Cassidian, Sopra Steria (Static B2) and ENAC (Hall Concorde 02). That effort evaluated the use of an Airbus-developed DynAero MCR4S light plane, serving as an RPAS surrogate, with air traffic to and from Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport. The consortium announced on February 15 that it had successfully completed its flight program.
Prominent among the accomplishments of the projects was to “demystify” the use of RPAS, according to organizers. “These demo projects are very useful and key to increasing awareness and stakeholder familiarization, and (they) give confidence to aviation authorities,” to conduct more complex trials, Célia Alves Rodrigues, the SESAR JU’s environment officer, stated in a presentation to the ODREA final workshop.
RPAS will be further incorporated in the Single European Sky vision under the SESAR 2020 research effort, which is due to begin this year and extend through 2024. The SJU published the first call for proposals for 11 air traffic management (ATM) projects in March, for which €20.6 million in co-financing is available. While the effort focuses more broadly on ATM, unmanned aircraft figure to play a significant role.
“Research may address any part of the ATM system from strategic planning through airport operations to tactical air traffic control and collision avoidance,” reads the call for tenders. “Research is also needed to support the integration of new and diverse aircraft types, including remotely piloted vehicles. The integration of RPAS or highly autonomous aerial vehicles provides a number of automation challenges requiring new supervision and control paradigms, which could extend to such developments as multiple simultaneous control and swarm dynamics.”