Tag: 2016 AIAA AVIATION Forum

Collaboration, Coordination Key to Successful Supersonic Flight Testing Program

Panelists: Moderator Sandra Magnus, executive director, AIAA; Doug Cooke, principal aerospace consultant, Cooke Concepts and Solutions; retired U.S. Air Force Col. Lee Archambault, chief systems engineer and test pilot, Sierra Nevada Corp., and former astronaut, NASA; retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Joe H. Engle, former astronaut, NASA; John Olson, vice president, Space Exploration Systems, Sierra Nevada Corp.

by Lawrence Garrett, AIAA web editor

Communication and collaboration between flight test engineers and test pilots were significant in developing hypersonic flight — from the early X-1 and X-15 rocket planes to the progression of the now retired shuttle program — and will remain so into the future, aerospace industry experts agreed June 17 at the final session of AIAA AVIATION 2016 in Washington, D.C.

Just as important is the collaboration between overlapping generations panelists in “Hypersonic Flight Testing: X-15 to Space Shuttle and Beyond” said, citing how the X-15 program helped with the development of the shuttle program and how the shuttle program is now helping in the development of Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser spacecraft.

Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Joe H. Engle, test pilot for the X-15 in the 1960s and early space shuttle missions in the 1970s, touched upon a number of challenges in the X-15 program, including the difficulty of landing a hypersonic aircraft that touched down at over 200 mph.

Because the drag was at the back of the X-15 and onboard experiments often increased the aircraft’s touchdown weight, Engle explained, pilots found it challenging to touch the nose down gently, the signature of a good landing.

With most aircraft, pilots pull back on the stick to lift the nose, but this did not work on the X-15, Engle noted, adding that the first several landings of the X-15 were a little rough as the nose would drop hard following touchdown of the main landing gear — like someone had “cut the rope.” But, he said, through frequent collaboration with flight test engineers, pilots discovered they had to push forward on the stick while landing the X-15.

“Pilots are trainable,” Engle joked.

Doug Cooke, principal of Cooke Concepts and Solutions and a former NASA associate administrator, called the X-1 and X-15 aircraft the prime predecessors to the space shuttle program. In 1975, Cooke was tasked with defining and implementing an entry aerodynamic flight test program for the space shuttle.

The “shuttle’s terminal part of its flight was based on basically the flight profiles from these programs,” he said.

The shuttle program was significant in human spaceflight and aviation history and offered many technological advances, Cooke said, highlighting the shuttle’s main engines which are “still to this day on the edge of theoretical efficiency for a hydrogen-oxygen engine.”

Cooke also pointed out that collaboration and coordination were essential, noting that the success of the shuttle flight test program “took a lot of coordination” between a team of engineers from Dryden Flight Research Center, the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards, McDonnell Douglas, and Rockwell International, who built the orbiter. Cooke said members of the team possessed “knowledge on past programs.”

Cooke also said the main challenges with the program were the shuttle’s stability and control, due to early testing of a scaled-down model in a wind-tunnel at speeds of about Mach 20. He recalled that the first shuttle orbital flight flew from Mach 25 to touchdown, and that the X-15 held the previous winged-vehicle flight testing record at Mach 6.7.

Cooke said they were able to overcome the concerns through calculations and testing via motion-based simulators, noting that what they accomplished was state-of-the-art at the time but is probably “old school” today.

Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Lee Archambault, chief systems engineer and test pilot for Sierra Nevada Corp., called both Engle and Cooke “legendary” in the aerospace industry. Archambault, moderator of this panel, who served as a shuttle crew member on STS-117 and STS-119 with AIAA Executive Director Sandy Magnus, credited the work from 1963-1975 as being beneficial to current-day aerospace engineers.

“We’re the new kids on the block with the next lifting body,” Archambault said of the Sierra Nevada team working on the Dream Chaser spacecraft. “Hopefully we’ll be there in about four years.”

Sierra Nevada was selected to participate in NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services 2 program. The Dream Chaser, which at 30 feet nose to tail, is only a quarter the size of the space shuttle. Despite the size difference, Archambault noted, their designs are similar, and the Dream Chaser flies with a similar approach angle as the space shuttle and has similar lift to drag, profile, and airspeeds.

The Dream Chaser’s next scheduled test flight is in December, and Sierra Nevada will continue its work on future plans for manned vehicles, he said.

John Olsen, Sierra Nevada’s vice president of Space Exploration Systems, echoed the sentiments expressed by his colleagues on the panel.

“I think this is still very much a growth industry in flight test,” he said. “I think it’s an extraordinarily fun and challenging domain that’s never really done.”

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Driverless Cars Have Much to Learn from Aviation

Speaker: Mary Louise “Missy” Cummings, associate professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and director, Humans and Autonomy Laboratory, Duke University
by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

The coming autonomous world of travel and transportation is one in which two industries could learn from each other for safer, more quickly developed technology, said Mary Louise “Missy” Cummings at a June 15 presentation at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.

During the “Perspectives on the Future of Autonomous Systems and Technology” session, Cummings, associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke University, examined how the auto and aviation industries could collaborate on the path to developing autonomous vehicles.

For example, some aircraft have sensors that scan and read gauges inside a cockpit to help pilots who are alone. That technology could also be used in all forms of transportation, she said, and will lead to cargo aircraft becoming drones very soon.

“Planes are much better flown on sensors than humans,” Cummings said, adding that commercial jets use automation to save gas, help level landings and perform other tasks.

However, driverless cars are still an unknown quantity compared with commercial jets. One of Tesla’s driverless cars crashed into a parked van on a highway recently because it could not determine its situational awareness fast enough.

Developers of driverless technology are “woefully unprepared” to do the proper testing of their autonomous systems, Cummings said.

“As soon as a car goes driverless, a driver goes into internal reflective mode,” she said. “I told Tesla that you can never ever count on a human to intervene in the driverless car’s control.”

She said the U.S. Airways plane landing in the Hudson River in 2009 is a good example of collaboration between human and automated machine.

“The real heroes were the engineers who designed the jet to set the right attitude, for instance, for the landing on the water,” she said.

Overall, Cummings said, the U.S. needs to “up our game,” because cargo plane drones are already being used in other countries, and change is coming for both auto and aviation.

“Jobs are shifting now, but we will still need humans in and around and on the loop in autonomous systems,” she said.

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The HondaJet: How One Engineer’s Dream Project Became a Reality

Keynote speaker: Michimasa Fujino, president and CEO, Honda Aircraft Co.

by Hannah Godofsky, AIAA Communications

It’s rare in the modern world that any manufactured vehicle is the dream project of only one engineer. Huge teams of people working with large companies design most aircraft. But the HondaJet has been the pet project of Michimasa Fujino since 1997, when he first sketched out a design.

Nearly 20 years later, his dream is finally a reality. Fujino is now president and CEO of Honda Aircraft Co., an aircraft manufacturer headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, where the HondaJet was awarded FAA certification and is being produced at a rate of two per month. Fujino said there are plans to double that this year.

“Honda serves as a mobility company,” Fujino said June 14 at AIAA AVIATION 2016 in Washington, DC, as he showed how Honda had gradually scaled from motorcycles to automobiles and, now, to aircraft. “It is a big jump from motorcycles.”

Fujino explained that he studied aeronautical engineering in schools but that in Japan, opportunities for the field were limited. He said he decided to join Honda because the company offers more options for young engineers.

“I saw some opportunity to design, build and sell,” he said.

The light-jet market is ideal for Honda because the planes are less expensive, and there is room to improve over existing products. The HondaJet spans less than 40 feet and is just shy of 43 feet long. Fujino said it’s smaller than existing business jets yet has more cabin space and is the fastest jet in its class.

Honda has taken full advantage of automation and computing in HondaJet’s manufacturing process, according to Fujino. The technicians who work on the final product have tablet computers that show CAD models of what they are working on, and robots paint the planes, he explained.

“Robots give us a very consistent surface,” Fujino said, showing images of HondaJets rolling off the production line.

The HondaJet has over 3,000 flight hours testing in more than 70 locations in the U.S.; customers throughout North America, South America and Europe have taken delivery of the final product; and a single HondaJet flew a 26,000-nautical-mile trip on a world tour without a single dispatch issue. It’s an engineer’s dream come true for Fujino.

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Commercial Aviation: Rooted in Glory, Strained by Exponential Growth

Keynote speaker: Michael Delaney, vice president, Airplane Development, Boeing Commercial Airplanes

by Hannah Godofsky, AIAA Communications

From the first flight in 1903, the commercial aviation industry has grown swiftly and has achieved much, but that growth has brought challenges, which Michael Delaney, the vice president of airplane development with Boeing Commercial Airplanes, discussed June 13 during the opening session at the AIAA Aviation and Aeronautics Forum and Exposition 2016 in Washington, DC.

“The time that lapsed between Orville Wright’s first flight and Neil Armstrong’s giant leap was just a mere 65 years,” Delaney said. “The second World War served as a greater industrial stimulus that gave rise to the jet engine, rocket-powered propulsion, radar and long-distance airplanes. … The peacetime dividend was a masterful supersonic flight less than 45 years after Kitty Hawk and the birth of the commercial jet transport, ultimately, with man leaving the planet Earth in 1969.”

But, he said, as commercial aviation has grown into a massive global industry, success built upon these past achievements has brought infrastructure, security, and energy and environmental challenges.

“Sixty-five billion people flew in the first 100 years of flight,” Delaney said. “Sixty-five billion people are expected to fly between now and 2030. The congestion level is beginning to resemble the 405 freeway in California and Washington [State].”

Long security lines and high volumes of people are exacerbating the strain on outdated infrastructure that is already at capacity, he said, adding that security is also a major issue.

“Since 9/11, we have had to live with heightened level of security. I see this only getting harder,” Delaney said.

The threat of cyberattacks in the aviation world also looms large with more electronic systems and more sophisticated hackers seeking to exploit them, he said.

Delaney also discussed the energy and environmental challenges faced by an industry growing as quickly as the commercial aviation industry is. Commercial aircraft are so large and consume so much energy that they barely resemble the gliders and small planes of their lineage.

However, he said there are current projects that show promise in making the future of aviation leaner and greener. Delaney compared the Solar Impulse 2 to the Wright Flyer, which was also very small and very slow but “shows us what’s possible.”

“There is certainly no shortages of challenges that our industry needs to step up and address now and in the future,” he said. “We have a responsibility to set the path for the future.”

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Fresh Hope for General Aviation Community

Panelists: Moderator Gregory J. Bowles, director of European regulatory affairs and engineering, General Aviation Manufacturers Association; Nicholas K. Borer, principal investigator, Aeronautics Systems Analysis Branch, NASA’s Langley Research Center; Lowell Foster, flight test engineer, FAA’s Small Airplane Directorate; Rick Peri, vice president for government and industry affairs, Aircraft Electronics Association; Andy Supinie, director of aerospace sciences, Textron Aviation.

by Ben Iannotta, Aerospace America editor-in-chief

The general aviation industry has been hampered by an out-of-date FAA certification rule that has driven up the costs of aircraft and too-often stifled innovation, but a solution could be on the way, said experts June 16 at AIAA AVIATION 2016 in Washington, DC.

A rewritten part 23 rule covering aircraft up to 19 passengers will be in place by the end of the year, predicted Greg Bowles of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.

Bowles was referring to the FAA target date of Dec. 16 for the new rule.

The new rule makes a “fundamental philosophical” change away from “prescriptive language to the maximum extent possible,” said Rick Peri, who is in charge of government and industry affairs at the Aircraft Electronics Association.

Bowles, who moderated the session, “Restoring the Foundation of Aviation,” gave an example of what’s meant by less prescriptive. He said that to avoid burnable material aboard general aviation aircraft, the current rule defines how a burn test must be conducted. The new rule specifies not to use burnable materials.

Regarding safety, Bowles showed a chart with a frustratingly flat line indicating no improvement in recent years in general aviation fatalities.

“Look how stable that is,” he said.

Several panelists suggested that this fatality line will shift in a favorable direction because of the new rule’s more welcoming approach to innovation.

“The bottomline is: New technology enhances safety,” said Andy Supinie of Textron Aviation, a merger of Cessna and Beechcraft, including the Hawker brand.

With a more welcoming approach to innovation, Peri said that “autonomous” general aviation is on the horizon.

FAA Flight Test Engineer Lowell Foster said overall, he sees reason for optimism about restoration of the industry, which is currently dominated by decades-old aircraft.

“I think we’re in a transition to a new growth phase, and one that could be even neater than what we’ve done in the past,” Foster said.

The panelists were hopeful that the shift in philosophy will usher in innovations that could reduce the costs of general aviation planes and lead to bold, new aircraft designs. Until now, certifying new technologies has often been “cost prohibitive,” said Peri of the Aircraft Electronics Association.

Specifically, several panelists said the new part 23 could open the door to applying entirely new approaches, such as the distributed electric propulsion technology to be tested by NASA’s piloted SCEPTOR plane, short for Scalable Convergent Electric Propulsion Technology and Operations Research.

The panel also raised the infrastructure challenges posed by electric propulsion. Nick Borer, a principal investigator at NASA’s Langley Researcher Center, noted that there are no electric charging stations he’s aware of at airports.

He said at least initially, the following needs to be considered: “Can we get some of the benefits of electric propulsion without challenging the infrastructure?”

He added that a possibility could be fuel cells, a technology he works on for NASA.

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Optimization, New Designs and Alternative Fuels Make Aviation Greener

Panelists: Moderator John Tylko, chief innovation officer, Aurora Flight Sciences; Fay Collier, project manager, Environmentally Responsible Aviation, NASA’s Langley Research Center; Mark Drela, Terry J. Kohler professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Alan H. Epstein, vice president of technology and environment, Pratt & Whitney; Robert H. Liebeck, chief scientist of the blended wing body airplane program, Boeing Defense, Space & Security

by Hannah Godofsky, AIAA Communications

Perspectives-and-Progress-on-Green-Aviation-AVIATION2017
Participants in the panel discussion, “Perspectives and Progress on Green Aviation,” June 5 during the 2017 AIAA AVIATION Forum in Denver.

Flight has already become much more efficient over the past 60 years, but with further optimization as well as the implementation of new designs and new fuels, an even greener future is possible, according to members of the “Perspectives and Progress on Green Aviation” panel June 5 at the 2017 AIAA AVIATION Forum in Denver.

“The industry curve is largely flattened at roughly a 1.5 percent annual improvement, and no surprise the aircraft silhouette has remained largely the same since the introduction of the 707,” John Tylko, chief innovation officer at Aurora Flight Sciences, said of the status quo in fuel efficiency and green aviation.

Fay Collier, project manager of Environmentally Responsible Aviation with NASA’s Langley Research Center, said NASA has set bigger goals for reducing emissions and aircraft noise. He said NASA’s N+2 and N+3 goals aim to create new airframe and engine integration concepts to reduce noise and fuel burn.

One such example is the X-48B demonstrator. Robert Liebeck, chief scientist with the blended wing body airplane program at Boeing, said researchers at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center have performed 122 test flights to date of the blended wing body aircraft.

“The airplane is robust and flies very well,” said Liebeck, showing a diagram of the structure of an X-48, which looks more like a cross-section of a submarine. “Structure … was the big challenge. You have bending loads in both directions, and then you’ve got a pressure load.”

Mark Drela, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke about design and optimization.

“Any time you have a new technology, there’s a very good chance — in fact, it’s almost certain — that the best use of that technology will be somewhere away from the current design practice,” Drela said. “We think it’s really important to re-optimize the entire system — and by system, I mean the airframe, the engine and the operation parameters — simultaneously so that you fully realize that potential of the new technology.”

Even if each optimization increases fuel efficiency by only 1 or 2 percent, he said, that could really add up across 20 different optimizable features.

Alan Epstein, vice president of technology and environment at Pratt & Whitney, explained that the propulsion system is currently about 20 percent of the value of a new airplane with today’s designs and that increasing that cost means gains in efficiency have to be substantial enough for airlines to be able to justify investment in a new system.

“At the current cost of fuel, the hybrid-electric airplane has to be 42 percent better in fuel burn to be cost neutral,” he said.

That’s a tough goal to meet, Epstein explained, adding that the math for new, more efficient aircraft does look better if fuel prices are higher.

“So how do we really go green?” he asked. “We go with sustainable alternative jet fuels. There’s hundreds of millions of gallons on order. If you fly out of LAX, now you’ll fly partially on sustainable alternative fuels.”

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Developers Charged With Making UAS a More Trusted and Autonomous System

Panelists: Moderator I.J. Hudson, former technology reporter, NBC4 Washington (WRC-TV); Brian Argrow, professor of aerospace engineering sciences, University of Colorado; Michael S. Francis, chief advanced programs and senior fellow, United Technologies Research Center; Parimal H. Kopardekar, manager, Safe Autonomous Systems Operations Project, and principal investigator, Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management, NASA’s Ames Research Center; John Langford, chairman and CEO, Aurora Flight Sciences Corp.; Richard Wlezien, professor and Vance and Arlene Coffman endowed department chair in aerospace engineering and director, Iowa Space Grant Consortium, Iowa State University

by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

Getting a more autonomous unmanned aerial system to understand what it needs to do with less human direction and finding ways to control it in the airspace are crucial issues for developers, according to a June 15 panel of experts at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.

Sandy Magnus, executive director of AIAA, introduced the panel, “The Changing Face of Aerospace: The Impact of UAS on Aviation,” by pointing out users are helping developers understand what needs to happen in design, presenting a shift in the usual method of product development. Now, she said, it’s up to policymakers and lawmakers to make decisions regarding the limitations of technology and its advantages.

Jay Gundlach, founder and president of Flighthouse Engineering LLC, said that UASs are so early in development that we don’t even know what to call them yet.

Parimal Kopardekar, manager of the Safe Autonomous System Operations Project and principal investigator for NASA’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management, said that one of the main principles in drone operations is understanding the value of constraints.

“We are talking about managing traffic that has to be as flexible as possible,” he said. “We will be setting up the rules of the road.”

In terms of education for next-generation UAS developers, Richard Wlezien, the department chair in aerospace engineering and director of the Iowa Space Grant Consortium at Iowa State University, said it has been frustrating because drone flights are too restrictive.

“Imagine training to be a physician and not being allowed in the operating room,” he said. “We have long way to go to open up airspace to students.”

Brian Argrow, professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado, said he sees three growing applications of drones: rescue missions, national security, and climate and weather prediction.

“Agriculture has not been a top application,” he said. “But there is a project underway now about soil moisture management using a small UAS.”

One of the biggest issues panel members discussed was trust.

“As they become more autonomous, software for drones has to have some level of trust that they will make the correct decisions,”Argrow said.

That issue is being worked on now, according to Michael Francis, chief advanced programs and senior fellow at the United Technologies Research Center.

“We want the UAS system to be able to learn,” he said. “That’s the part of the industry that is going to grow, because we need to be able to operate safely under expected contingencies.”

Panelists all agreed standards are needed but cautioned that when they are made, they are hard to change or adjust.

“We need to be careful what we put in place and be careful about the nature of standards and what the intent is,” Kopardekar said. “We need to ask ‘What could it stop in the future?’”

 

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Inventors Hope Investors Give Them Room to Grow

Panelists: Moderator John Langford, chairman and CEO, Aurora Flight Sciences Corp.; Joe Burns, CEO, Sensurion Aerospace; Jonathan Evans, CEO, Skyward; Ben Marcus, co-founder and CEO, AirMap; Jason Rigoli, partner, Enlightenment Capital; Richard Whittle, author, “Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution”

by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

Building the next generation of unmanned aerial systems requires educating investors and convincing them to make the leap into the industry, experts on the panel “Invention, Entrepreneurship and Unmanned Systems” said June 15 at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.

Richard Whittle, author of the book “Predator: The Secret Origins of the Drone Revolution,” said drone development kicked into gear in the early part of the century as the Predator drone transitioned from a surveillance vehicle to an armed offensive weapon shooting Hellfire missiles during the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Today, as the UAS industry hits its stride, investors are beginning to understand and court UAS businesses, said Jason Rigoli, partner at Enlightenment Capital, adding that trusting the intellectual capital inside of the industry is a big part of that growing confidence.

“The investing game is really about backing the jockey instead of the horse,” Rigoli said.

And the evolution of the UAS industry is happening fast.

“We as a business community are providing solutions ahead of problems,” said Jonathan Evans, CEO of Skyward. “There is a lot of work being done, and we need to keep giving developers the tools to do it. Democratized technology is in the hands of the end user, and we must evolve.”

Raising money is the next challenge, noted John Langford, chairman and CEO of Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. Fortunately, the unmanned space is now seeing more angel investors and other investment groups engaging with businesses, he said.

Rigoli agreed, adding, “But having a full ecosystem of development doesn’t mean capital is easy to access. It’s still hard to find an investor. When you do, it’s a marriage, and you’re stuck.”

Joe Burns, CEO of Sensurion Aerospace, said he is ready to take a meeting with every venture capitalist he can.

“We’re at a hockey-stick moment now, where you have to either make it big or have to cash out,” he said.

Burns said it’s important to focus on fundamentals — such as the business plan.

“You have to demonstrate to investors that you can sell the product,” he said.

In regards to whether small startup companies could expect to compete with Google, Facebook or Amazon, Evans said: “I think that those companies are sensitive to anti-trust issues. They seem to have the attitude of ‘Let’s let this startup eco system grow first.’”

 

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Tomorrow’s Drones Are Amazing, but Obstacles Exist

by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

Speakers: Andy Lacher, UAS integration research strategist, Mitre; Dale Richards, senior research fellow in human factors, Coventry University

Drones that essentially fly themselves are available now, but there are obstacles, and the future needs humans working with drones, experts said June 16 at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.

In the panel, “Visions of the Future,” Andrew Lacher, UAS integration research strategist for Mitre, showed examples of what the future of drones looks like.

First was a drone from Lily, a camera company. He said it’s essentially a flying selfie stick that follows its subject based on criteria the subject programs into a special wrist watch. Though, according to Lacher, the aircraft is really flying itself as it follows its subject.

“This aircraft is picking its flight path, its speed and direction, working to counter wind, and will land itself when it detects that the battery is running low,” Lacher explained.

Another example was the fixed-wing PrecisionHawk robotic airplane. He said the company views itself more as a seller of data than a drone manufacturer because it uses the plane’s camera to gather pictures and other data for agriculture and other similar uses.

Lacher said overall, there is a need to make operating unmanned aerial systems simpler.

“We want to lower user sophistication — make these aerial systems easier to operate so that there is less training on how to use them,” Lacher said. “There is more automation needed in the system, but it needs to still work as a team with a human.”

Dale Richards, senior research fellow in human factors at Coventry University, said U.K. drone rules are similar to the rules in the U.S. (except for maximum flying altitude, which is 400 feet in the U.K. and 500 feet in the U.S.).

“But they consider the users as pilots and not operators,” he said of U.K. rules. “I don’t think that is going to work.”

Lacher said what is really needed is pilotless aircraft, which he called “the future.”

The discussion also touched on autonomous cars. Lacher cited the time a Google autonomous car was pulled over for driving too slowly and the time it faced a woman in an electric wheelchair chasing a duck in the middle of the road.

“It’s these non-normative conditions that need to be thought about,” Lacher said.

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Industry and Commerce Working Toward Safe, Beneficial UAS Traffic Management

by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

Panelists: Moderator Gretchen West, senior adviser of innovation and technology, Hogan Lovells, and advisory board member, Drone World Expo; Sean Cassidy, director, Strategic Partnerships, Amazon Prime Air; David Famolari, director, Verizon Ventures; R. John Hansman, T. Wilson professor of aeronautics and astronautics and director of the International Center for Air Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Parimal H. Kopardekar, manager, Safe Autonomous System Operations Project, and principal investigator, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management, NASA’s Ames Research Center; Craig Marcinkowski, director of strategy and business development, Gryphon Sensors; Peng Wei, assistant professor of aerospace engineering, Iowa State University

Managing the airspace traffic for unmanned aerial systems will take a coordinated effort from industry and government to keep the systems flying safely as well as to provide the benefits of such things as package delivery, panelists said June 16 at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.

In the panel, “UAS Traffic Management System,” Parimal H. Kopardekar, manager of the Safe Autonomous System Operations Project and a principal investigator for Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said the goal of NASA is to safely enable large-scale operations in the National Airspace System.

He said NASA must offer airspace operations guidance and performance roles for UAS operators while getting UAS suppliers to work with regulators.

Sean Cassidy, director of strategic partnerships for Amazon Prime Air, said the concept of operations includes the vehicle.

“You have to have a vehicle with performance levels commensurate with the operations,” he said. “You have to know how it reacts to others in the airspace.”

Good airspace operations, according to Cassidy, means you have to have vehicle-to-vehicle communication and some kind of standardization of controller-to-controller protocols.

“Having independent technology is a good thing in the short term,” he said. “But you need a coherent framework about what [UAS traffic management] means to you.”

Cassidy said Amazon is considering implementing a receiver for drones to land on that is aware of the traffic under 500 feet.

“We don’t have that option for the FAA to take time to develop standards,” he said. “This is the first time where speed is our friend.”

John Hansman, T. Wilson professor of aeronautics and astronautics and director of the International Center for Air Transportation at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said there is a lot of confusion about what UAS traffic management, or UTM, is.

“There is no real concept of operation yet,” he said.

But one of the basic concepts of UTM, Kopardekaer said, is that we need to understand what is involved in going beyond line of sight.

“You want to know the constraints,” he said. “That is what this traffic management system will do.”

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Drones Need More Room to Grow

Panelists: Moderator Dallas Brooks, director, Raspet Flight Research Laboratory, Mississippi State University, and co-chair, FAA’s UAS Science and Research Panel; John Cavolowsky, director, Airspace Operations and Safety Program, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, NASA headquarters; Jonathan Evans, CEO, Skyward; Diane Gibbens, president and CEO, Trumbull Unmanned; Charlie Keegan, chairman elect, Air Traffic Control Association; Michael Singer, CEO, DroneView Technologies

by David Hodes, Aerospace America contributing writer

The transformation of the country’s airspace to manage more traffic is well underway, and now is the time to give drones more areas to access to help develop standards, experts said June 16 at the 2016 AIAA Demand for Unmanned Symposium in Washington, D.C.

In the panel, “Transformation in the National Airspace System,” Jonathan Evans, CEO of Skyward, said the UAS industry wants to make the NAS safer in a technical, innovative and synergistic way.

“We can transform the national airspace by allowing drone operators to be in that space,” he said.

That begins with flight recordkeeping, which Evans says currently “is pretty dusty.”

“We can take the complexities of those records and can provide more elegant, simplified tools in a way that hasn’t been done before in aviation,” he said.

Mike Singer, CEO of DroneView Technologies, said his company collects data, stitches it together to form 3D models and creates maps of topography, providing tools to solve real problems about airspace usage.

“We are acting as a catalyst to bring this technology to the market,” he said.

Air traffic controllers also need to be involved in the discussion, said Charlie Keegan, chairman elect of the Air Traffic Control Association. He maintained they are the keepers of history and don’t want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

“We want to have a voice in how the airspace is managed,” Keegan said. “We want to say what it should be to give more understanding and clarity to the FAA studying it.”

Singer agreed, saying the FAA should be a reviewer of standards, not a generator.

UAS users are saturating the sky with their devices, Evans said, meaning that the transformation of the national airspace is happening on its own.

“It’s like the internet — it’s programmatic,” he explained, adding that the transformation of the airspace is about commercial demand of that airspace.

“Give us access,” Evans said. “We need to come into urban spaces. That is the evolution we need to help us go forward.”

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