Papers & Presentations

• Testing and Evaluation of UTM Systems in a BVLOS Environment
  Taylor Mitchell, Marc Hartman, Dane Johnson, Rakshit Allamraju, Jamey D. Jacob and Kraettli Epperson; 2020 AIAA Aviation Forum, June 2020. Link [PDF]

   

  • Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems of the future will require networks of systems both on the ground and onboard the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) to ensure safe aircraft separation and routing. To that goal, Oklahoma State University has partnered with Vigilant Aerospace Systems to operate a flight corridor to test these systems and work towards beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations which can serve as a foundation for future UTM networks. Flights will be conducted between two airfields 13 miles apart in a rural airspace established under FAA Certificate of Authorizations (COAs) and Part 107 exemptions. Vigilant’s FlightHorizon software is to be utilized to provide aircraft traffic situational awareness and deconfliction routing using inputs from ADS-B, UAS telemetry, and radar systems installed at the airfields. Operations have already been tested using mobile observers for long-range flights to test the aircraft platforms, communications, and management software. This will soon transition to BVLOS testing utilizing the aforementioned technologies to satisfy FAA requirements for sense-and-avoid and then determine which of these technologies could help provide a minimum viable system for Unmanned Traffic Management.
• Enhanced ADS-B Flight Tests on F-18 Supersonic Aircraft
  Ricardo Arteaga, Nickolas Demidovich, John Dinofrio, Nestor Voronka, Chuck GreenLow, Kraettli Epperson, and John Atherley; 2019 AIAA Aviation Forum @ ITAR Technical Presentations. June 2020.

   

  • Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Armstrong Flight Research Center (Edwards, California), the Federal Aviation Administration, M42 Technologies, Regulus Group, and Vigilant Aerospace Systems, collaborated for the flight test demonstration of an enhanced Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) system integrated on a supersonic F-18 aircraft. The objective of this flight test was to demonstrate an enhanced ADS-B Out (1090ES) system on F-18 platform(s) for supersonic flight operations and to provide tracking from an ADS-B ground station for situational awareness. The goal of this flight test was to create a robust representative ADS-B system for supersonic flight operations that will allow commercial supersonic aircraft to be seamlessly, accurately, and safely integrated into the national airspace. By the year 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated that aircraft operating within certain sections of the national airspace be equipped with ADS-B Out technology; this research is the first to show how to satisfy the mandate for supersonic aircraft. The flight objectives of the prototype were to test the performance of ADS B Out and ADS-B In as installed on an F-18B. In September 2018, three flights were conducted at Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) (Edwards, California) each one-hour flight, and reaching speeds of Mach 1.4 and accelerations of 5 g’s. NASA and FAA researchers could verify the ADS-B tracking from FAA ground stations to determine the position accuracy throughout the subsonic and supersonic flight operations. This flight test introduces breakthrough research in integrating an enhanced ADS-B concept into civilian supersonic aircraft to enable commercial supersonic flight and space vehicles to maintain the nation’s aeronautical leadership and to support the U.S. aviation and space industry.
• µADS-B Detect and Avoid Flight Tests on Phantom 4 Unmanned Aircraft System
  Ricardo A. Arteaga, Kraettli Epperson, Mohammed Dandachy, Arun Aruljothi, Hong Truong, and Mihir Vedantam
  2018 AIAA Information Systems-AIAA Infotech @ Aerospace. January 2018. Link [PDF]

   

  • Researchers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Armstrong Flight Research Center (Edwards, California) and Vigilant Aerospace Systems collaborated for the flight test demonstration of the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) based collision avoidance technology with the uAvionix ADS-B Transponder (model Ping2020). The purpose of the testing is to demonstrate that NASA/Vigilant software and algorithms are compatible with uAvionix hardware systems and the DJI (Dà-Jiāng Innovations Science and Technology Co., Ltd, Shenzhen, Guangdong) Phantom 4 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS). The testing and demonstrations are necessary for both parties to further development and certification of the technology in three key areas: flights beyond line of sight, collision avoidance, and autonomous operations…
• Federal Laboratory Consortium National Meeting, Federal Laboratory Consortium: “Detect-and-Avoid System with ADS-B Avionics for Unmanned Aerial Systems.” Arteaga, Ricardo. 2017 April 25. 1p. – Link [PDF]
  • Presentation poster for the FLC National Meeting outlining the FlightHorizon ADS-B detect-and-avoid system, technology transfer, and benefits to the aviation industry.
• NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA: “Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast: ADS-B Sense-and-Avoid System.” Arteaga, Ricardo. 2016 June 13. 38p. – Link [PDF]
  • Presentation outlining the FlightHorizon ADS-B, NASA research and testing of detect-and-avoid software for unmanned systems.
• Application of an ADS-B Sense and Avoid Algorithm
  Ricardo A. Arteaga, Moshe Cavalin, Mohammed Dandachy, and Robert Kotcher
  AIAA Flight Testing Conference. 2016 June 10 – Link [PDF]

   

  • The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California is leading a program aimed towards integrating unmanned aircraft system into the national airspace system(UAS in the NAS). The overarching goal of the program is to reduce technical barriers associated with related safety issues as well as addressing challenges that will allow UAS routine access to the national airspace. This research paper focuses on three novel ideas: (1) A design of an integrated UAS equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast that constructs a more accurate state-based airspace model; (2) The use of Stratway Algorithm in a real-time environment; and (3) The verification and validation of sense and avoid performance and usability test results which provide a pilot’s perspective on how our system will benefit the UAS in the NAS program for both piloted and unmanned aircraft.

Patent

• “Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) System for Ownership and Traffic Situational Awareness.” Arteaga, Ricardo. Patent 9,405,005. 2016 Aug 2. Link
• “Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) System with Radar for Ownship and Traffic  Situational Awareness.” Arteaga, Ricardo. Patent 10,302,759. 2019 May 28. Link 

Industry Standards

ASTM International

• ASTM F3442 / F3442M-20, Standard Specification for Detect and Avoid System Performance Requirements, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2020, www.astm.org.