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Unmanned Aircraft Will Test Air Traffic Control

Posted by samzenpus on from the bumper-planes dept.

coondoggie writes "While the skies aren't exactly buzzing with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) just yet, experts are warning their explosive growth will require military and public officials to address the issue sooner than they might think. The four chiefs of service aviation and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) branches told the Army Aviation Association of America's unmanned aircraft symposium last week that the military should crystallize combat air control regarding UAVs, while domestic authorities must work out access and use of UAVs in domestic airspace. "I'm surprised we haven't had a collision yet," said Rear Adm. Joseph Aucoin, director of the Navy's aviation plans and requirements branch."

3 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Not sure of the reason for unmanned aircraft by Arimus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    1. For recon work you can pack more sensor equipment in, you can configure the UAV to have extremely long loiter times, some can be made a lot smaller and cheeper than a manned craft.

    2. For combat craft the really big selling point is that when your fighter gets shot down you haven't lost several million pounds worth of trained crew in addition to several million pounds of aircraft... unmanned uav's can also pull alot higher G force than a traditional craft (ok the airframe can take it but the crew won't appreciate it).

    --
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  2. long endurance UAVs by azery · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Some kind of UAVs are designed to fly for months, being controlled by a computer instead of being flown remotely by a pilot on the ground. (see e.g. http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2005/2nd_quarter/qinetiq_awarded_contract.html ) In normal operation, these aircraft fly high above normally used airspace. Taking off can be done in special locations under special rules. Landing is more difficult. The real problem is however what happens in case of a crash.

    Those aircraft are very low weight composite aircraft with very thight energy budgets. Due to the composite parts, they are invisible to primary radar. Due to the energy budget, they cannot install an SSR transponder. In other words, they are completely invisble in case something goes wrong. (in which you cannot trust the transponder anyhow)

    What you need in such case is a direct link to air traffic control to tell that your autonomious plane is lost so that they can clear a part of the airspace. Now, since your aircraft is no longer controlled by a "ground pilot", who is going to make the call?

    One alternative is to let the ground station relay the aircraft position to ATC centers (air traffic control centers). However, current ATC systems are not built to accept this information, especially not when the number of users of UAVs increases.

  3. Video of a near-miss by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dunno if this video is real, but it sure looks like it is. Near miss between a UAV and an Airbus A300.