Using cell-DEVS for prototyping unmanned aircraft system traffic simulation

The use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) is expanding speedily. This results in a need to integrate UAS traffic into non-segregated airspace. However, this integration introduces risks of mid-air collisions between UASs and manned aircraft (MA) in the airspace. To deal with these issues, we present two models that work together to assess the risk of a mid-air collision between a UAS and another manned aircraft operating in Canada’s Northern airspace. The first model represents a part of Canada's Northern airspace and the aircraft and UAS traffic in it. The second model is an Uncorrelated Encounter Model (UEM) which determines whether or not a mid-air collision has occurred between a UAS and an aircraft. These two models are integrated to form a UAS-UEM model which determines the number of mid-air collisions in several UAS and aircraft flight simulations. Our results show a low probability for a mid-air collision between a UAS and an aircraft in the airspace region of interest