PrecisionHawk Reveals BVLOS Detection Solution

PrecisionHawk is incorporating Sara’s acoustics-based aircraft detection (ABAD) technology into its onboard UAS beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) solution to identify non-cooperating aircraft such as cropdusters, helicopters, and small general aviation fixed-wing aircraft that might not be equipped with ADS-B transponders. Company CEO Michael Chasen said the system can detect aircraft up to 10 km away within a 360-degree ring around the drone and it doesn’t weigh much more than an iPhone and a few antennas.

“It listens for aircraft and alerts the pilot when one enters the vicinity. If the pilot doesn’t respond, it triggers a second alert. If the pilot still doesn’t respond, the drone automatically lowers itself to the ground. It’s been tested on everything from hang gliders to electric helicopters to small cropdusters to larger manned aircraft,” said Chasen. “This type of system identifies aircraft and gives the pilot plenty of time to maneuver the drone out of the way or, in the worst case scenario, to automatically land the drone to ensure no type of accident can take place.”

PrecisionHawk uses its own low-altitude traffic and airspace safety (LATAS) platform to identify cooperative aircraft that are equipped with ADS-B that could potentially conflict with a UAS. “But identifying non-cooperative aircraft is the bigger challenge. Today’s radars are too heavy. They draw too much power. The radars on drones are only one direction and only go out a mile or so, which doesn’t give you enough warning or time to get your drone out of the way. Visual sensors don’t really work because of clouds,” said Chasen.

PrecisionHawk discovered Sara and its technology while it was working on the FAA Pathfinder Program, along with BNSF Railway and CNN, developing guidelines and best practices for operations beyond visual line of sight. That report was published this week. According to Chasen, “Detection is the main hurdle for truly opening up BVLOS.”

PrecisonHawk partnered with drone software company UgCS to develop a version of the flight software for its Precision Enterprise software, especially for BVLOS operations. Built-in features include the ability to obtain an FAA low-altitude authorization and notification capability (LAANC) waiver directly from the software.

“When you are starting to deploy technology like this at scale it is more than just what the pilot can see on the mission. It is about making sure you have the technology to relay that information back in real time back to headquarters or a command center,” said Chasen. PrecisionHawk’s system can take feeds from multiple drones and relay it back to headquarters to be viewed by management and/or experts simultaneously.

However, ABAD is not cheap and right now seems suitable for only high-end UAS systems. Tyler Collins, PrecisonHawk’s vice president of LATAS, said it cost the company anywhere between $250,000 and $500,000 to “tune” each drone model for ABAD, and that typically would make it suitable for drones with raw airframe values—before sensor and payload packages—in the $75,000 to $100,000 range.

“The acoustics package has lots of sunk R&D costs for each different model of drone we put it on,” Collins said. “We have to essentially go through and build models to tune out noises from the gas generator because it is so loud. And it is fairly expensive for us to do that.” Collins said the goal is to eventually get the cost of ABAD down to 10 percent of the airframe, but conceded that “It will take a couple of years to get there.”

Collins also said ABAD is limited to detecting other aircraft and not other airborne threats such as flocks of large migratory birds. “We did the math on that. The risk of us hitting a bird is so low. It might take out one motor, but we can still fly with one motor lost.”

Chasen said PrecisionHawk is committed to helping other companies cross the BVLOS frontier. “We want to get this information out into the community so we can all take this next step together. This is the next step in unlocking the potential of what this industry can truly do, but it’s a big step.”