Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Tech Transfer
UAS Demand Generator for Discrete Airspace Density
Project Description
A key component to solving many engineering challenges of UAS integration into the National Airspace System is the ability to state the numbers of forecasted UAS by airframe and mission/operation type being performed within discrete airspaces. UAS growth is a function of locational based businesses and public use needs, in addition to increases in UAS uses and future aircraft types. Being able to forecast this growth requires time consuming and highly detailed configuration and model development, consensus between different organizations, and flexible tools tunable to changing perspectives. Availability of a common cloud based application integrating varying growth curves and linking geospatial aspects of UAS operations will greatly enhance and stabilize system level analysis of issues such as: radio spectrum usage, safety case analysis, economic forecasts, etc. Individuals and organizations would benefit in using a community centric tool with the ability to shared data and projections while still allowing individual researchers to set up paradigms for their own, unique forecasts. The overall project objective is to design, develop, and study the feasibility and potential benefits of a UAS Demand Generator for Discrete Airspace Density (UAxpan) system which allows for common solutions in complex forecasts of growth and uses of numerous unmanned systems and mission/operational types. This will be accomplished by developing and testing a prototype system and performing the key functionality objectives using real industry, UAS, geographic, and NAS data.
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Anticipated Benefits
UAxpan is an innovative concept for a UAS Demand Generator that is directly related to fostering NASA's achieving results in driving UAS integration in the NAS. Our UAS demand forecast system will provide valuable input to the R&D being performed by the NASA UAS Program. The Control & Communications Project (NASA GRC) and the Certification & Safety Project (NASA LaRC) will directly benefit by having the number UAS forecasted operations soundly based upon real world constraint knowledge and industry SMEs – and based upon industry markets, UAS types, use by mission, and discrete airspace classes associated with geographical location and time. This forecast data is needed to validate the communication systems engineering work on channel bandwidth sizing, signal-in-space specification (especially for shared channel access techniques) and for planning of spectrum reuse. Without this UAS demand data the selection of differing approaches to form consensus on standards for civil aviation will be delayed. The UAxpan project will also be essential in the development of another NASA emerging project for the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) System which is targeted to enable low-altitude civilian applications of UAS. The UTM will greatly benefit from accurate forecast of planned UAS use in low altitudes as input data to traffic flow and control simulations.
The UAS demand tool, UAxpan, will provide valuable forecast data to non-NASA users in the Federal Government (FAA, DHS, DOT, EPA, DoA, DoI), Armed Services, state and local governments, universities, standards organizations (RTCA, ICAO, AEEC, AUVSI, JARUS) and defense and commercial business. All these organizations need to support investment planning, perform engineering, determine market needs, or establish international standards and agreements based upon the projected use of UAS which goes beyond just having aggregated U.S. totals. The U.S Congress is driving the introduction of UAS through the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2012 and their staffs would be able to benefit from UAS projections by industry and governing domains. UAxpan will also be the source of analytics and projection data that can be offered to users through the emerging "big data" businesses. These firms are offering aviation system information to operational research staffs of major airlines or airport operators for the purpose enhancing operation effectiveness. More »
The UAS demand tool, UAxpan, will provide valuable forecast data to non-NASA users in the Federal Government (FAA, DHS, DOT, EPA, DoA, DoI), Armed Services, state and local governments, universities, standards organizations (RTCA, ICAO, AEEC, AUVSI, JARUS) and defense and commercial business. All these organizations need to support investment planning, perform engineering, determine market needs, or establish international standards and agreements based upon the projected use of UAS which goes beyond just having aggregated U.S. totals. The U.S Congress is driving the introduction of UAS through the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2012 and their staffs would be able to benefit from UAS projections by industry and governing domains. UAxpan will also be the source of analytics and projection data that can be offered to users through the emerging "big data" businesses. These firms are offering aviation system information to operational research staffs of major airlines or airport operators for the purpose enhancing operation effectiveness. More »
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Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mosaic ATM, Inc. | Lead Organization | Industry | Leesburg, Virginia |
Armstrong Flight Research Center
(AFRC)
|
Supporting Organization | NASA Center | Edwards, California |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
California
-
Virginia
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