1 Unmanned Aircraft Systems Sense and Avoid Avionics Utilizing ADS-B Transceiver

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires “an equivalent level of safety, comparable to see-and-avoid requirements for manned aircraft. ” A proposed FAA rulemaking would mandate Automatic Dependent Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) out equipage by 2020, forcing aircraft flying in the NAS to broadcast their state vector to Air Traffic Control (ATC) and aircraft equipped with ADS-B in capability. With the advent of lightweight, low-power, and low-cost ADS-B units, the equipage and the use of ADS-B transceivers on small UAS are no longer limited by payload and power capabilities, and represent promising opportunities for the regulated operation of small UAS in the NAS. The University of North Dakota (UND) has been actively developing enabling sense and avoid (SAA) technologies under a series of projects funded by the Department of Defense, and is now turning to ADS-B as the central component for mid-air collision avoidance. This paper presents the results of modeling collision avoidance algorithms using ADS-B derived information in a software-in-the-loop (SWIL) environment. Upon extensive testing, the system is designed to be integrated seamlessly into a hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) environment, and ultimately in a flight test environment aboard a small UAS. I