Flexible Aerial Systems Testing with the Reconfigurable and Expandable Payload (FAST-REP)

The rigorous verification and validation (Vamp;V) as well as certification of new and complex systems and algorithms for use in the National Airspace System (NAS) is of utmost importance to support Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) missions. Novel hardware and software architectures are needed to provide a cost-effective and unified way for testing new advanced technologies for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). To facilitate Vamp;V activities at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) and beyond, American GNC Corporation (AGNC) and Penn State Universityrsquo;s Applied Research Laboratory (PSU-ARL) are proposing the Flexible Aerial Systems Testing with the Reconfigurable and Expandable Payload (FAST-REP) System. This system will provide NASA with a flexible scheme to conduct two types of testing: (1) recording sensor data in flight and then performing Vamp;V afterwards in an offline way using the acquired data and (2) running candidate software in real-time and capturing the outputs and decisions to see if they match expectations of the developers and customers. The latter test allows to incorporate effects of sensor sampling rates, latencies, resolutions, program execution times, etc. in documenting the performance of the algorithm under test. To enable this, FAST-REP will consist of: (i) an expandable and reconfigurable structure mounted to a flight vehicle; (ii) power delivery module with optional battery; (iii) single board computer or microprocessor running application code with flash memory for data storage; (iv) supporting electronic circuits for multi-sensor data acquisition and interfacing ports; and (v) suite with different types of sensors (motion, vision, ranging, thermal, magnetic, etc.). The system is reconfigurable to different UAS types and sensors, both in terms of the embedded system as well as the mechanical structure.nbsp;