NASA Commercial Applications and research would greatly benefit from a certified version of CFS for UASs. NASA already has significant in-house expertise in creating CFS applications. With a UAS enabled version of CFS, NASA researchers could more easily use UASs to safely fly their payloads and perform their research. With the embedded test agent and accompanying ground software, NASA would be able to verify their applications quickly and efficiently, reducing the number of defects that escape to the field and lowering the cost of their test programs.
The Non-NASA Commercial market for UASs is ready to explode. Many potential application developers cannot currently overcome the barrier to entry that is presented by safety related concerns. With a safety critical flight software framework in place, they can focus on their problem space without needing extensive flight software experience. A precision agriculture company can focus on their sensors and data processing functions rather than worrying about how the vehicle can safely fly in the NAS. A delivery company can solve the problems associated with mechanizing their delivery process rather than how to get the vehicle to fly safely from source to destination. A certified CFS is to UAS as iOS is to the iPhone. CFS can enable application developers to create solutions that stand on the shoulders of a rock solid platform without having to ascend the learning curve associated with the platform specifics. The Non-NASA market would benefit from the embedded test agent and ground software in the same was that NASA would. Efficient test programs reduce the number of defects and allow for more testing at a lower cost. Thorough testing is the key to the expansion of UASs in the NAS.
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