Maneuverless Monocular Passive Ranging System M2PARS

ABSTRACT: Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) need regular and more flexible access to civil airspace to enhance existing training capabilities and to improve the logistics of transporting UAS. To qualify for unrestricted access to civil airspace, UAS need the capability to Sense and Avoid (SAA) both cooperative and non-cooperative intruder aircraft. Passive Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) sensors are attractive for SAA on all classes of UAS because of their low Size, Weight, and Power as well as cost. Passive sensors traditionally have suffered from the drawbacks of high false alarm rates and unavailability of range to the target. UtopiaCompression Corporation has developed a novel approach to maneuverless monocular passive range estimation that can additionally be used to filter out false tracks due to objects such as clouds. The passive ranging and false track filtering technologies have been tested both using recorded flight test data in a non-real time desktop environment and real-time hardware-in-the-loop set-up. The objective of this Phase II effort is to evaluate the passive ranging and false track filtering technologies in flight tests. At the desired end-state, the integrated system software, hosted on an embedded system, will have been flight tested and will be enhanced to Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 6. BENEFIT: Anticipated benefits. A successful Phase II effort will demonstrate that the innovative passive ranging technology offers UAS the capability to range non-cooperative air traffic, which can enable a passive only solution to SAA for UAS. These results will demonstrate improved capability as this is the first passive imaging sensor based SAA solution with the ability to provide intruder range and also filter out false tracks. Potential commercial applications. There is a very significant commercial market for a successful SAA capability in commercial revenue traffic manned aircraft. DoD will be the early adopter of the technology. Within DoD, the immediate market for SAA alone is well over one thousand shipsets. As its effectiveness in avoiding collisions is demonstrated, UC anticipates a move in the commercial aviation industry to adopt the technology as a pilot advisory system, similar to the adoption of T-CAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System). The proposed passive ranging technology, which can range to non-cooperative traffic over a much larger volume of sky than a human and is never distracted, will improve pilot situation awareness and therefore flight safety. As economies of scale bring the price down to the T-CAS range and test data begin to demonstrate flight safety improvements, it is reasonable to expect the FAA and commercial aviation entities will adopt technology.