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Effectiveness of Redundant Communications Systems in Maintaining Operational Control of Small Unmanned AircraftAs a part of NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) research, a test was performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the redundant Command and Control (C2) communications system for maintaining operational control of small UAS in the airspace over a rural area. In the test, operators set up a primary and a secondary UAS C2 communications system, sent a maneuver command to an Unmanned Aircraft (UA) with and without a functioning primary system, then verified the execution of the sent command to confirm the operator control. Operators reported that the tested redundancy configurations were effective in maintaining operational control in the test airspace over rural locations. Since the next phase of UTM research focuses on operations in an urban area where an increased level of Radio Frequency (RF) activities occur compared to a rural area, four recommendations are provided to sustain the effectiveness of redundancy in urban operations. First, the operator should not include C2 systems that use the industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) radio bands in redundancy configurations. Second, the operator should verify the RF characteristics of the intended operation area and examine the area’s radio noise floor. Third, the operator should monitor the availability, quality, and reliability of communications services used by a redundant system. Fourth, the small UAS community should adopt a standard set of contingency steps to handle the loss of C2 communications so that such events are managed in a consistent manner across the airspace. The insights from the test will be used to accommodate the FAA’s UAS integration effort.






Document ID
20190030723
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Jung, Jaewoo
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Nag, Sreeja
(Bay Area Environmental Research Inst. Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Modi, Hemil C.
(Science and Technology Corp. Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
September 11, 2019
Publication Date
September 8, 2019
Subject Category
Air Transportation And Safety
Report/Patent Number
ARC-E-DAA-TN70944
Meeting Information
Meeting: Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC)
Location: San Diego, CA
Country: United States
Start Date: September 8, 2019
End Date: September 12, 2019
Sponsors: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX12AD05A
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNA16BD60C
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Portions of document may include copyright protected material.
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