The Future use of UAS

 The article the commercial use of Drones by Dart Drones written June 15, 2015 discusses about the future of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in the commercial sector and the restriction by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the use of UAS for commercial purposes.
One the future uses that caught my attention was News/Journalism where the article discussed the benefit of using a UAS compared to an helicopter, some of the benefits were the cost of operation of the UAS compared to the helicopter and the fact that the UAS can fit into much tighter spaces. Another interesting future use that caught my attention was the use of the UAS for construction and landscaping which shows how UAS could offer simple and easy landscaping and can assist in getting information needed for creating blue prints and more.
 As for restriction, presently the use of UAS for commercial  purposes is restricted by the FAA and only about 500 individuals and corporations have received section 333 exemption which allows the full operation of a UAS but in order for businesses to fully utilize them it is important that the FAA lift the restriction, unfortunately with a lot of near misses between the UAS and MAS occurring frequently(Ribeiro, 2016) it is difficult for the FAA to lift the restriction.
 Luckily there is a sense and avoidance project presently going on involving the National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), General Atomic Aeronautical System (GA-ASI) and Honeywell international Inc that have successfully demonstrated a proof of the concept Sense And Avoid (SAA) System marking milestones to inform the development of standards and regulations to safely integrate UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS) (Conner, 2015). Once this project is complete it is only a matter of time before the FAA gives full authority to UAS operators whose system have the required sense and avoidance system to operate in the NAS.
Reference:
Conner, M. (2015, August 31). NASA, FAA, Industry Conduct Initial Sense-and-Avoid Test. Retrieved April 30, 2016  http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/Features/acas_xu_paves_the_way.html (Links to an external site.)
Dart Drone (2015, June 15). The commercial use of Drone. Retrieved May 20, 2016
http://dartdrones.com/commercial-use-of-drones/
Ribiero, J (2016, March 20). Near miss between drone and Lufthansa plane fuels demand for regulation. Retrieved May 21, 2016 from
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3046082/near-miss-between-drone-and-lufthansa-plane-fuels-demand-for-regulation.html

UAS Use

The use of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) has increased dramatically from when the first recognized UAS known as the Kettering Bug was invented in 1917 by Charles Kettering and used as a bomb payload (National Museum of US Airforce, 2015) to today where they are used for almost everything the Manned Aircraft System (MAS) does.

One of the UAS use is for Precision Agriculture where the UAS is used to monitor crop growth and check for pest like insects, birds, rodents and weeds (Bailey, 2016). They are also used today to spray farm land with pesticide (Mosvitch, 2015). The reason why there has been an increase in its use in agriculture is it is more safer to use as compared to the crop dusters. While the MAS have been used for agriculture for a long time for doing the same task above, the safety record is appalling with a total of 75 accident and eight fatalities in 2015 reported to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and this rate was relatively low compared to previous years (Lavender, 2016).

Another use of UAS is for surveillance to support mission related to kidnapping, search and rescue operations, and fugitive investigation (Alderton, 2015) and it has been very successful in this missions. The reason for its success is that unlike the MAS, the UAS can gain access into any space and hence could retrieve the required information needed by law enforcement in order to act but this is impossible to achieve using the MAS.

Even though we can all see the benefit in using UAS, there are still some kick back from agricultural MAS operators stating that its uses is causing a safety concern to them (Bernett, 2015) and other agencies requesting police to obtain warrant in order to use the UAS (Alderton, 2015) but I believe with time this will no longer be a problem.

Reference
Alderton, M (2015, April 30). To the Rescue! Why Drones in Police Work Are the Future of Crime Fighting. https://lineshapespace.com/drones-in-police-work-future-crime-fighting/
Bailey, A (2016, January 21)Farmers at Precision Agriculture summit learn about UAS   http://www.uasmagazine.com/articles/1399/farmers-at-precision-agriculture-summit-learn-about-uas
Bennett, C (2015, December 1). Ag Pilot Concerns Grow Over UAV Safety
http://www.agweb.com/article/ag-pilot-concerns-grow-over-uav-safety-naa-chris-bennett/
Lavender, B (2016, January). NTSB 2015 Final Report
http://agairupdate.com/article_detail.php?_kp_serial=00002726
Moskvitch, K (2015, July 14). Agricultural drones: the new farmers market
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2015/07/farming-drones.cfm
National Museum of US Airforce (2015, April 7). Kettering Aerial Torpedo "Bug"
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/MuseumExhibits/FactSheets/Display/tabid/509/Article/198095/kettering-aerial-torpedo-bug.aspx

Unmanned Aircraft System- Sense And Avoid System

The increase in the use of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) has brought about one major problem which is the safety of our National Airspace System (NAS) with a lot of near missses with Manned Aircraft System (Gilbert, 2015). In order to fix this problem, the National Aeronautics Space Agency (NASA), the Federal Aviation Adminstration (FAA), General Atomic Aeronautical System (GA-ASI) and Honeywell international Inc have successfully demonstrated a proof of the concept Sense And Avoid (SAA) System marking milestones to inform the development of standards and regulations to safely integrate UAS in the NAS (Conner, 2015).

The SAA System was integrated into NASA Ikhana research aircraft, a civilian version of the company's Predator B and the test flight evaluated the SAA system in a wide variety of collision avoidance and self separation between two remotely pilot aircraft and various manned aircraft (Conner, 2015).

The parts that made up the SAA System were GA-ASI's air to air radar system, Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II, a Sense and Avoid processor that is hosting Honeywell's sensor fusion software  and algorithms that would provide recommendations on how to stay clear of the traffic an UAS would encounter in commercial airspace (Van Wagenen, 2015).

The researchers evaluated three self-separation display and algorithms and their ability to effectively inform the UAS pilot of nearby traffic and help resolve conflict in a timely manner. The initial test were successful showing both the automatic avoidance system as well as pilot in the loop self separation functionality for the UAS. The crew had 170 flight encounter and collected over 50 hours of data with noticeable accomplishment (Conner, 2015) .

In conclusion, these tests are still on going and the success of these tests will help develop a technical standard for the SAA System for the UAS in our NAS in the nearest future.

References:
Conner, M. (2015, August 31). NASA, FAA, Industry Conduct Initial Sense-and-Avoid Test. Retrieved April 2, 2016 from http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/Features/acas_xu_paves_the_way.html
Gilbert, D. (2015, August 3). JFK airport drone collision scare: UAVs spotted in near miss with incoming passenger planes. Retrieved April 2, 2016 from
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/jfk-airport-drone-collision-scare-uavs-spotted-near-miss-incoming-passenger-planes-1513801
Van Wagenen, J. (2015, July 6). NASA, Industry Fight Test UAS Sense-and-Avoid Technology. Retrieved April 2, 2016 from
http://www.aviationtoday.com/av/commercial/NASA-Industry-Flight-Test-UAS-Sense-and-Avoid-Technology_85479.html#.Vv_f2_krLIU

UAS Strengths and Weeknesses

The Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) have come a long way from the first officially recognized UAS known as the Kettering Bug which was developed in 1918 (Stamp, 2013). The initial use of UAS was primarily by the military and was for dropping bomb payloads on enemy territory compared to today where a UAS is used both for civilian and military use.

While both the military and civilian UAS perform different unique missions, there are some missions that are similar. One mission that is similar to both the military UAS and the civilian UAS is search and rescue mission. A great example of a military UAS used for search and rescue is the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 global hawk which is used to record intelligence, surveillance and reconnaisance data(U.S. Air-force, 2014) and in civilian mission could be used for search and rescue of refugees that are stranded in the Mediterranean sea (Mcnabb, 2015) as well as search and rescue of individuals that have been declared missing.

The strength of the RQ-4 lies in its ability to fly more than 34 hours at a stretch and stay as high as 60000 feet with the operator still able to view high resolution Imagery (U.S. Air-force, 2014) while its weaknesses are mission critical components fail at high rates resulting in poor takeoff reliability, high abort rate, low mission capable rates and a high demand for maintenance support (Reed, 2011).

In order to correct the weakness, the reliability of critical components fitted on the RQ-4 should be improved on and there should be better maintenance support plan for the UAS.


For future cross over/correlated missions/task, it will be in the interest of UAS manufacturers to leave room for the possibility of crossing over of a military UAS to a civilian UAS and vice-versa when they are been developed, hence this will reduce design time and cost of manufacturing a new UAS.

References:
Mcnabb, M (2015, October 5). Military Drones Re purposed for Refugee Rescue
http://dronelife.com/2015/10/05/military-drones-repurposed-for-refugee-rescue/
Reed, J (2011, June 7). The RQ-4 Global Hawk's Continuing Woes
http://www.defensetech.org/2011/06/07/the-rq-4-global-hawks-continuing-woes/
Stamp, J (2013, February 12). WORLD WAR I: 100 YEARS LATER
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/unmanned-drones-have-been-around-since-world-war-i-16055939/?no-ist
U.S.AIRFORCE.(2014, October, 27). RQ-4 Global Hawk
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104516/rq-4-global-hawk.aspx

Case Analysis Effectiveness

The Case Analysis tool that was used in the Unmanned Aerospace System course was very effective and very easy to understand. The peer review section was very helpful in the correction of mistakes due to typo and insufficient information. It also helped me in improving my case analysis by showing how to explain an important information in a way that is easily understandable to whoever that the case analysis is meant for.

At my present position as an Aircraft Systems Engineer, this Case Analysis tool has helped me to become a better reviewer of different aircraft documents namely Work order, Air worthiness Directives, Task card, Engineering Order, Service Bulletin to name a few. It has actually helped me in properly reading between the line as well as having great input in important documents that might have cost my company a lot in fine from the Federal Aviation Administration due to mistakes.

I also expect this Case Analysis to help me in any future job I have since most aircraft organization and airlines want an engineer who has a great working relationship with a team of different individuals and reaching the desired goal of the organization.

Finally, this process could be improved by making sure that when a Case Analysis is reviewed, the response to the review should be made on the same document and not on a different document like the way we did it in this course. I also believe that there should be direct interaction between the reviewer and the individual that writes the Case Analysis at least once or twice this is because there are some information that are better communicated through speech and not writing.

References:
Reg Austin (2010). Unmanned Aircraft Systems. UAVS Design, Development and Deployment.

Request For Proposal

We all know that when natural disasters occur, it has a devastating impact on the communities that it affects. One of the major natural disasters that I will like to discuss about is wild fire and we know we could reduce the damage it causes if we can put it out on time, the only problem is locating when and where it starts from and that is why the fire departments now make use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to monitor places that are prone to wild fire.

In other to improve the fire department ability to monitor the wild fire, improvement to some elements of the UAS is required. Some of these elements are the command and control, the payload and the Data link and improvements will be discussed below.

First and foremost the command and control should be capable of manual and autonomous operation. It should also be able to communicate with various ground and air support in the area. The most important one is the command and control should be able to provide processed data that are needed in a timely manner (Howard, 2013)

Secondly, the payload shall have a daylight digital camera that is capable of color daytime video from up to 500 feet above ground level. The payload shall also have infrared thermal image camera capable of infrared video.

Finally, the Data link should have sufficient amount of spectrum in the L-Band to support video application as well as been able to cover a long range (Jain & Templin, n.d).

References:
Jain R& Templin (n.d). Wireless Datalink for Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Requirements, Challenges and Design Ideas
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.232.9261
Howard, C (2013, July 11) UAV Command, Control & Communication
http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/print/volume-24/issue-7/special-report/uav-command-control-communications.html

UAS Crop Monitoring Mission

The use of drone for crop surveillance can drastically increase crop yields while minimizing the cost of walking the fields or airplane flying over filming and burning considerable amount of fuel (Precision Drones, n.d). It also helps to inspect the farm for insects and pests that might cause damage to the crops.
Even though some farmers have started using UAS for precision Agriculture today, there are still some concerns associated with the use of a UAS for this mission. Some of these issues will be discussed below:

First and foremost, there is lack of well trained UAS operator to fly this system. We might say why do we need a well trained operator for the mission but without a trained operator, important information that would be needed might be missed when the UAS is operated by an untrained operator. There is also the possibility that the UAS could crash which could lead to thousands of dollars repairing or even replacing it.

Secondly, there is the issue of lack of qualified technician who could work on the UAS when it has a problem. Most farmers might decide to send the UAS back to the manufacturer for repair and could take a long time before they could get it back, which during this period, there will be no way of monitoring the growth of the crops.

Finally, there is the legal issue where UAS users are restricted from flying over someone else property because most individuals might think the UAS user is interfering in their private lives, this might not be the case but if a property owner has a problem with a UAS hovering over his or her yard, there is really nothing the UAS owner can do other than to find another flight path and this might affect the productivity of the UAS (Wilde Beuger Solmecke, 2014).

References:

Precision Drone(n.d). Drones For Agricultural Crop Surveillance. Retrieved February 21, 2016 from http://www.precisiondrone.com/drones-for-agriculture.html

Wilde Beuger Solmecke (2014, February 18). Civilian drones and the legal issues surrounding their use. Retrieved February 21, 2016 from https://www.wbs-law.de/internetrecht/civilian-drones-legal-issues-surrounding-use-50459/