NASA autonomous drones conduct air taxi research – NASA

Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, recently flew several drones out of sight without visual observers. The drones successfully flew around obstacles and each other while taking off, following planned routes and landing, all while flying autonomously without the need for a pilot to control the flight. The test marks a major step forward in the air taxi’s autonomous flight capabilities.

Lou Glaab said allowing aircraft to fly out of sight, where neither the aircraft nor the airspace is monitored by direct human observation, demonstrates years of research into automated and safety systems and requires the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. This can only be accomplished with special approval from NASA. , division chief of NASA’s Langley Aerospace Systems Engineering Division.

It would be safer and more cost-effective to test autonomous flight technology for larger passenger-carrying air taxis on small drones to see how they avoid each other and other obstacles.

NASA is also using helicopters to test elements of automated technology. These replacement aircraft helped NASA mature autonomy before self-flying air taxis became integrated into the sky.

When you have multiple vehicles, all coming in and out of a vertical airport that’s located near an airport or deep in a community, we have to make sure the automation technology for those vehicles can safely handle the volume of air traffic in heavy traffic, Grubb said.

Based on past testing, the team successfully conducted multiple flights without a visual observer using a purchased ALTA 8 unmanned aircraft system, also known as a drone, and flew the drone within line of sight. Externally, it is called NOVO-BVLOS flight.

Small drones are loaded with software that can perform airspace communications, flight path management, avoidance of other aircraft and many more skills needed to operate in busy airspace. This is critical to the vision of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), where drones and air taxis will regularly operate simultaneously.

The flight test was observed from NASA’s Langley Autonomous Mission Remote Operations Control Center while the drone took off and landed at the Autonomous Integrated Navigation Test Range in an urban test environment.

NASA will transfer new technology created during the project to the public to ensure industry manufacturers have access to the software when designing their vehicles.

Jake Schaefer, the program’s director of flight operations, said NASA’s ability to transfer these technologies will greatly benefit the entire industry. By conducting flight tests in national airspace close to airports and urban environments, we can test future AAM vehicle technologies and procedures in a controlled but relevant environment.

One such technology is ICAROURS, which stands for NASA’s Integrated Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operation of Unmanned Systems. The software provides autonomous detection and avoidance capabilities as part of an overall system to maintain a good distance from other air traffic.

Another technology used is NASA’s Safe2Ditch system, which allows the vehicle to look at the ground below and autonomously decide on the safest landing spot in the event of an in-flight emergency.

NASA’s AAM mission has multiple programs dedicated to various research areas. The project, called “High Density Vertiplex,” is specifically aimed at testing and evaluating where these future vehicles will take off and land at high frequency, called vertical landing sites, or vertical landing sites, for multiple vertical landing sites close to each other. and the technological advances required to achieve this goal successfully.