FLITE Core Cloud System – Intelligent UTM for Safer UAS Operations

The FLITE Core Cloud System (FCCS) project will help to fill a significant gap in the current UAS ecosystem: a need for intelligent UAS traffic management (UTM) components with in-flight risk mitigation for low-altitude UAS. ADP has obtained a license to implement and commercialize the NASA UTM patent, which describes the intelligent UTM NASA considers critical to the next 100+ years of UAS flights. FCCS will consist of 1) an onboard risk mitigation system that considers weather (using onboard sensors and/or weather data feeds), air traffic control (ATC) over ADS-B and RID, detect and avoid sensing, automated geofencing (e.g., based on NOTAM, TFR, or adverse weather hazards), and system monitors (e.g., motors, servos, battery temperature/operability, communications link) to determine real-time risk to the airframe and, if necessary, automatically re-route or invoke a “safe to land” component (e.g., NASA’s Safe2Ditch); and 2) a set of cloud services for machine learning (ML) (e.g., recognizing times of day, locations, or specific flight plans or payloads that make risk more likely) and intelligent flight planning, including evaluation and optimization of flight plans based on weather, natural and human-made terrain, communications, and airspace restrictions such as airports and certain populated areas.