Small Non-Cooperative Collision Avoidance Systems Suited to Small Tactical Unmanned Systems

SARA’s Passive Acoustic Non-cooperative Aircraft Motion Analyzer, PANAMA, is a high-performance, low SWaP air collision avoidance system for UAS. PANAMA is an all-weather system, which outperforms electro-optic solutions, and is superior to radar in size, weight, power and cost. Under the Navy SBIR N151-026 Phase I and Phase II, SARA integrated PANAMA onto an RQ-20 Puma group 1 UAS. This system was demonstrated to the FAA during the Pathfinder II evaluation and independently evaluated by the Air Force Test Pilot School, who rated the system satisfactory. In the proposed Second Phase II, SARA will expand PANAMA capabilities to better operate in NAVY environments. Updates include jet detection, multiple simultaneous aircraft tracking and improved range estimation. SARA is also proposing a data collect on an RQ-21 Blackjack, which we are targeting as our next testbed platform for PANAMA. We believe PANAMA is a key enabling technology for enabling military UAS to operate beyond visual line of sight in the national airspace system and may also become a means of satisfying due regard requirements.