Relatively simple modifications to existing ATC automation systems would allow controllers to monitor unmanned aircraft and manage potential conflicts with other aircraft in the same airspace, according to automation provider Lockheed Martin. In a recent firefighting demonstration involving two unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), the company said it proved its ability to monitor a UAS that departs from its planned area of operation.
Lockheed Martin is developing UAS traffic management, or UTM, capabilities using its own research and development funds, and, separately, participating in the NASA-led effort to design a low-altitude UTM system for small drones. While the latter research effort is building a “soup-to-nuts” infrastructure that would safely separate and manage drones flying below 500 feet, “we are more focused on getting operational capabilities deployed into the NAS [national airspace system] right now,” Mike Glasgow, Lockheed Martin Flight Services chief architect, told reporters in a conference call.
The “web-services framework” that Lockheed Martin is developing for UTM is a set of software interfaces that enable a UAS ground station to communicate with the company’s flight services network, a web-based system general aviation pilots can use to file flight plans, study weather and aeronautical briefings and receive in-flight alerts. With the UTM capability, the company added exception management logic to determine when a drone deviates from its planned mission and encroaches into controlled airspace. Another interface to the ATC system provides a means to notify controllers of the errant drone.
The interface to the ATC system Lockheed Martin has tested connects to its en route automation modernization (Eram) system, which the Federal Aviation Administration has installed at 20 en route centers nationwide that manage high-altitude traffic. “We took a copy of the Eram automation system and we implemented interfaces between flight services and Eram so that we can pass these exception situations over, and they can be displayed to controllers,” Glasgow said. “Most important, when we find that a UAS has left its area of operation and is now potentially in conflict with other, manned aircraft, we used Eram’s automatic conflict probe capability to determine the other aircraft that are potentially affected by this UAS. That gets displayed to the controllers, just as if they were getting an aircraft-to-aircraft conflict today between two manned flights.”
The FAA was present during a firefighting and UTM system demonstration Lockheed Martin conducted on November 18 at Griffiss International Airport, in Rome, N.Y., Glasgow said. The company used a Stalker XE small fixed-wing drone fitted with an electro-optical and infrared sensor to identify hot spots and pass precise location information to a K-Max optionally piloted cargo helicopter. The K-Max, which has seen action with the U.S. Marine Corps in Afghanistan and is now being shown to the U.S. Forest Service and Department of the Interior, dropped water on the hotspots with a Bambi bucket.
Modifications were made to ground station software of the two aircraft, allowing the operators to file flight plans and also to receive position reports from the UAS as they flew. If one of them left the airspace or was found to conflict with another aircraft, the ground station received an alert and the exception was communicated to the ATC system and displayed on an Eram monitor. The UTM aspect of the demonstration worked “perfectly,” Glasgow said.
“These capabilities can be built on existing systems with relatively limited modifications as opposed to having to stand up an entirely new set of automation to deal with it,” he said. Still needed is a drone-specific surveillance infrastructure that can track and manage UAS at low altitude, whether by radar or automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast or possibly by using the cellular network. But Lockheed Martin has demonstrated the capability to link UAS operations with the greater ATC system.
“In the end, what this shows is a clear path forward with the combination of UTM services and some minor modifications to our ATC systems to allow the safe integration of UAS into the NAS,” Glasgow said.