Robust Encounter Avoidance and Conflict Resolution (REACT) for Unmanned Carrier Aviation (REACT-UCA)

We propose to develop Robust Encounter Avoidance and Conflict Resolution system for Unmanned Carrier Aviation (REACT-UCA), which will be a component of a sense and avoid solution that seeks to i) incorporate the available sensing modes to produce an accurate state estimate for the threat, ii) predict which of the threats pose imminent risk to the Group 5 UAS, then iii) produce collision avoidance guidance suitable for operations in densely populated air-traffic airspace around an aircraft carrier as well as during aerial refueling operations. The Phase I will focus on designing and prototyping REACT-UCA in a simulation environment identifying features, parameters, and operational considerations of Carrier Controlled Airspace (CCA), and extensibility to potential sensors. Phase II will focus on integrating REACT-UCA into a full UCA system and testing the system in a representative environment. Innovations under this work will include:1) probabilistic models of CCA so that aircraft dynamics (state transitions) can be inputs to a prediction system which evaluates candidate avoidance strategies,2) a tactical collision avoidance maneuver generator, with predicted risk of collision as the success metric, and 3) the use of our simulation/performance characterization framework to embed performance evaluation with the design process of REACT-UCA.