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
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Saturday, April 2, 2016
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
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
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