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Air Force Wants Technology That Will Let Drones Sense and Avoid Other Aircraft

Posted by samzenpus on from the spread-out dept.

coondoggie writes "With an eye toward letting drones share the nation's common airspace, the Air Force has set out to find the technology that will let unmanned aircraft sense and avoid other airplanes in flight. The ability to sense and avoid — common on all manned aircraft that fly the national airspace — is one of the trickier issues for drones which do not support such technology. It will be a major hurdle to jump as drone vendors and others press for common drone access to national airspace."

17 of 148 comments (clear)

  1. A radar? by Anon,+Not+Coward+D · · Score: 2

    It is that easy? and a good script to read the output

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    1. Re:A radar? by stewsters · · Score: 4, Interesting

      That would seem the obvious answer for civilian areas. I am wondering if there are power, weight or stealth requirements that radar doesn't fit. I would guess a stealth attack drone that you send it to shoot down their fighters would both need to be quite and be able to sense other aircraft. "Avoid" might be switched to "intercept" in the article title.

    2. Re:A radar? by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

      Military drones may be built to be stealthy, but I don't see why publicly-owned ones (or ones owned by members of the public) wouldn't want to avoid aircraft. With that said, how many drones fly as high as regular aircraft? Certainly, there's a conceivable risk of them colliding during landing or takeoff but a seemingly simple solution to that would be to just ban them from being used near airports.

      Don't aircraft already carry some kind of transponder that drones could be programmed to avoid if the signal gets above a pre-set threshold?

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      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    3. Re:A radar? by icebike · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It is that easy? and a good script to read the output

      I can't see a single reason for the Air Force to be flying stealth drones in US airspace.
      So putting radars on them makes sense.

      For combat use, having an active radar can be come a liability, especially if you are on stealth air-to-ground missions.
      For future air-to-air combat use, you probably need the radar anyway.

      Customs and Boarder Patrol drones were equipped with GA-ASI's Lynx synthetic aperture radar, but that is almost certainly
      designed for ground observation, and not aircraft avoidance.

      The weight and size penalty can't be the only thing the Air Force is worried about. They must be resisting reliance on radars
      mostly from the stealth perspective. Why would they need their drones to be stealthy over US territory?

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    4. Re:A radar? by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      "That would seem the obvious answer for civilian areas. I am wondering if there are power, weight or stealth requirements that radar doesn't fit. I would guess a stealth attack drone that you send it to shoot down their fighters would both need to be quite and be able to sense other aircraft. 'Avoid' might be switched to 'intercept' in the article title."

      I would guess that radar stealth techniques, if not already applied to missiles, soon will be.

      But for "non-stealthed" craft, I would imagine that this would have many civilian uses. After all, until aircraft can reliably locate and avoid other craft automatically, few people will have "flying cars".

    5. Re: A radar? by sabri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You seem to think all aircraft fly above 30,000 feet. GA fliers spend a great deal of tine between 1,000 and 10,000 AGL. These fliers generally are flying under VFR (visual flight rules) where they are expected to see and avoid other aircraft visually.

      You are right. However, a lot of airspace requires, and a lot of airplanes have, transponders. With the roll-out of ADS-B, all aircraft will be visible in the future.

      When I fly GA, I have a little device called a PCAS in my cockpit. It passively monitors the transponders from other aircraft and will alert me if someone is nearby. This is a very light weight piece of technology, about the size of my cellphone. Easy to use in a drone...

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      I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
    6. Re:A radar? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's actually even easier. It's called a TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). Most large commercial aircraft already have it equipped. It's small enough to equip on a cessna, and only relies on receiving the transponder hits from other aircraft.

      In laymans terms, when the big ATC radar on the ground detects the various planes in the sky, said planes respond with a transponder code which includes their airspeed and altitude. The TCAS listens for those transponder responses and does a quick bit of direction finding to determine if anyone is on a collision course. If they are, it applies an agorithm to 1) let the pilot know and 2) recommend a course of action (usually climb or descend) to deconflict. The algorithm is designed in a way that if both aircraft are TCAS equipped, the correction recommended to each won't conflict with the other. In fact, in civil aviation, if your installed and certified TCAS system recommends a correction, the pilot is legally obligated to follow it.

      Installing a TCAS is easy. Linking it to the autopilot may be a bit tougher. Of note, this doesn't help in many combat zones where peoples transponders may or may not be turned on, but for over the contiguous US? Absolutely.

    7. Re:A radar? by WindBourne · · Score: 2

      That is in the VISIBLE light spectrum. In other spectrum, you would pick up images even with the clouds. Personally, I am wondering if a drone flying on its own would be fine, esp. using enemy radar against others. Likewise, add in the ability for drone's to talk to each other and notify themselves of where they are at, and perhaps picking up other crafts.

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    8. Re:A radar? by theqmann · · Score: 2

      I think the issue is that the military drones can't LEAVE military airspace currently, so to get them out into civilian airspace (for whatever reason) requires following the FAA rules.

    9. Re:A radar? by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 2

      Especially at night.

  2. Avoid drones by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    Why don't they invent technology that lets plane sense and avoid drones?

    1. Re:Avoid drones by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Funny

      Then no plane would ever land at a commercial airport with a TSA presence?

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      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. Strange by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Defense contractors: But boss, I don't understand. We've been working 30 years and we've spent 100 billion dollars to get this thing to home in and hit any target you designate with a high probability, and now you want us to design one that does exactly the opposite? I suppose I could point you to one of our earlier test models...

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  4. Working on it by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a guy who's been in the electronics and software industry for over 40 years and have a very strong background in RF, digital and analog systems.

    I recently started putting that expertise to work in an attempt to come up with an effective and affordable "Sense And Avoid" (SAA) system -- at least in part because I fly FPV RC model aircraft and for these to be flown safely "beyond visual line of sight", some form of SAA is required.

    After spending a considerable amount of time investigating previous strategies and considering the strengths and weaknesses of the available technologies, I have designed and prototyped a system that delivers a 1-mile "sphere of awareness" around any craft on which it is installed.

    It does not rely on transponders (thus will "sense" *any* potential threat within that 1-mile sphere) and is small/light (250g) enough to be fitted to all but the smallest unmanned craft. The price (in volume production) would also be very reasonable -- about US$250.

    Initial (ground-based, static) testing has shown that the prototype system conforms very closely to the design goals and expectations -- the next step is to strap a second prototype to a small foam RC model plane and start collecting dynamic data which will be used to test and refine the firmware.

    Unfortunately -- this is where everything turns to custard.

    The national airspace administrator here in New Zealand is CAA (our equivalent of the USA's FAA). They, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that since what I'm working on has significant commercial potential, I can not continue my development work (ie: strap this thing to a small foam RC model and fly it over a grassy paddock in the countryside) without first gaining a "commercial operating authority".

    Now I've been flying RC models for almost 50 years and have a very high level of skill. Hell, I have two very popular YouTube channels with a total of over 45 million views and 100K subscribers in which I entertain and inform folks on the subject of RC models. However, all this counts for nothing and, according to CAA, if I want to continue my development of this technology by strapping it (as a passive payload) to the type of small foam model that thousands of folk fly here every weekend, I must jump a raft of ridiculous hurdles.

    Firstly, the "minimum requirement" is a full-sized pilot's license -- which costs about $18K to obtain in this country.

    Secondly, I have to file all sorts of safety plans, obtain a radio qualification and engage in a huge amount of bureaucratic crap -- simply to do what I've done as a hobbyist for decades -- fly a tiny (900g) foam RC plane over a grassy field in the countryside.

    Now I don't have $18K to spend getting a pilot's license, besides which, this is silly bureaucratic nonsense!

    As a result, the technology which I've developed and which stands to be a real "game changer" with massive export/earnings potential for this tiny nation that keeps crowing about its "innovative tech sector" is becalmed because some idiot desk-jockies seem to think that somehow, simply because what I'm doing has commercial potential, any RC flying I do will result in widespread death and destruction -- unless I spend months filling in forms, learning to fly a full-sized plane and licking boots.

    This, my friends, is why New Zealand barely qualifies as a first-world country and will *never* play any significant role in the tech world.

    Meanwhile, the same country spends $1m of taxpayers' money on something as lame and dangerous as the Martin Jetpack.

    Go figure!

    Those who ask "why not just find a quiet spot and test it anyway without telling anyone?"... well CAA have advised me that if I dare to do this without the required "authority", they will take "enforcement action" against me. So, if I turn around and say "I've tested it and it works" then it's "do not collect $200, do not pass go, go directly to jail".

    And for those who ask "if this technology works as well as you say, why not get

    1. Re:Working on it by NewtonsLaw · · Score: 2

      Geez, given the sentiments expressed in your comment, I'm surprised you actually have a computer.

      You do realise that computers are used to spy on citizens and design all sorts of weapons don't you?

      Hypocrisy?

      Nah... surely not :-)

      The reality is that SAA is a *safety* techology.

      Every year, a good number of people are killed because sometimes (due to a lack of this technology), aircraft crash into each other (go check out the Wikipedia article on mid-air collisions).

      This technology would make *all* aviation safer.

      Do you have something against a technology that saves lives? Shame on you!

  5. TCAS? by ajclements · · Score: 2

    The technology has been in use since the 50's. How hard can it be to replace the robotic voice with a signal to the drone's navigation system?

  6. Re:DOH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Since at least 1916. Did you knw that Norma Rae (Marilyn Monroe) was working in a WW-II drone factory when she was discovered.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Early_work:_1945.E2.80.931947