Go to the NASA Homepage
 
Search >
Click to Search
Human Systems Integration Division homepageHuman Systems Integration Division homepage Organization pageOrganization page Technical Areas pageTechnical Areas page Outreach and Publications pageOutreach and Publications page Contact pageContact page
Human Systems Integration Division Homepage
Outreach & Publications Sidebar Header
Go to the Outreach & Publications pageGo to the Outreach & Publications page
Go to Awards pageGo to Awards page
Go to News pageGo to News page
Go to Factsheets pageGo to Factsheets page
Go to Multimedia pageGo to Multimedia page
Go to Human Factors 101 pageGo to Human Factors 101 page
What is Human System Integration? Website
Publication Header
Unmanned Aircraft System Flight Test Approach Supporting the Development of Regulatory Recommendations for Integration with the National Airspace System  (2022)
Abstract Header
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System Project performed research that was critical to developing minimum operational performance standards for systems that will enable unmanned aircraft systems to routinely access the National Airspace System. As part of this research effort the project conducted a series of flight tests that validated several technologies and procedures which were key to developing the minimum operational performance standards, which will in turn guide industry in certifying unmanned aircraft systems. Flight Test Series 3 and Series 4 focused on unmanned aircraft systems operations using larger vehicles, with performance characteristics similar to transport category manned aircraft, transitioning through Class E airspace. The Flight Test 3 and Flight Test 4 efforts utilized the NASA Ikhana unmanned aircraft system, a civilianized General Atomics - Aeronautical Systems Inc. (San Diego, California, U.S.A.) MQ-9 Predator/Reaper, outfitted with a General Atomics developed detect and avoid systemthat included an air-to-air radar providing non-cooperative sensing capability to validate the detect and avoid algorithms and separation criteria. These flight tests also enabled the development and testing of a test architecture and infrastructure needed for subsequent flight tests.

The flight test series conducted by the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System Project culminated with the Flight Test 6 effort that used a Navmar Applied Sciences Corporation (Warminster, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) TigerShark XP unmanned aircraft system to investigate low cost, size, weight, and power operations in the National Airspace System. The Flight Test 6 effort incorporated lessons learned from all the earlier flight-test activities, including Flight Test 3 and Flight Test 4, and implemented a "full mission" simulation of low cost, size, weight, and power unmanned aircraft systems operations in a representative airspace environment. The full mission simulation allowed a number of metrics to be collected that were valuable to the minimum operational performance standards development process, including human response times, performance in remaining well-clear of aircraft, and the acceptability of the complete unmanned aircraft system. To create a representative airspace environment, the NASA live virtual constructive distributed environment was utilized to combine multiple assets from across NASA into a single, coherent simulation.
Private Investigators Header
Authors Header
Groups Header
Keywords Header
Aircraft, Airspace, Flight, Integration, NAS, National, Recommendations, Regulatory, System, System, Test, UAS, Unmanned
References Header
In Systems Concepts and Integration (SCI-328) Panel Symposium on Flight Testing of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), Segovia, Spain
Download Header
Adobe PDF Icon  SCI328_UASNASFlightTest.pdf (Download Acrobat Reader Click to download Adobe Acrabat Reader)
  (732KB) (application/pdf)
Go to the First Gov Homepage
Go to the NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Homepage
Curator: Phil So
NASA Official: Jessica Nowinski
Last Updated: August 15, 2019