Can Technology Protect Airplanes from the New

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Can Technology Protect Airplanes from the New CANDRONES TECHNOLOGY PROTECT AIRPLANES FROM THE IN NEW THREAT? A BUSY SKY IT’S EXACTLY 3:45 A.M. on a blustery and unseasonably cold Tuesday morning in May when an armed How can we military guard wearing a bulletproof vest waves me through the west entrance of Edwards Air Force ensure drones Base. On a typical weekday at this hour, almost everyone here would be asleep. But this isn’t a typical don’t collide with weekday. I’m in a briefing room with some two dozen researchers—mostly aerospace and computer airliners? NASA software engineers, along with three Air Force pilots certified to fly drones—at NASA’s Armstrong Flight and the FAA are Research Center, which is located on this Southern California mili- working to find BY MICHAEL BEHAR tary base. We’re guzzling coffee and chomping doughnuts while Dan the best collision Sternberg, a NASA operations engineer and former F/A-18 Hornet test avoidance pilot, leads the meeting, ticking through the day’s flight plan. systems for UAVs The Armstrong team is here to evaluate how so-called “detect-and-avoid” technologies designed for in the United collision avoidance can prevent drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), from smashing into other States, soon to aircraft. Today’s schedule involves a series of 24 head-on passes—when two aircraft face off on a near-col- number in the PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY THÉO; DRONE: ALEXEY YUZHAKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM; AIRLINER: KOSMOS111/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM YUZHAKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM; THÉO; ALEXEY DRONE: BY ILLUSTRATION PHOTO lision course—between a General Atomics MQ-9 drone named Ikhana and two piloted, or “intruder” millions. SEPTEMBER 2016 AIR & SPACE | 43 aircraft, twin-engine Beechcraft turbo- majority are essentially flying blind. “LOOK AT A PICTURE of an aircraft with computational techniques and programs props (a B200 and a C90). So far, there are no reports of a drone hail damage,” instructs Jim Blanchard, to simulate an eight-pound UAV quad- The exercises are designed to simulate damaging an aircraft. (Last April, one chief scientist for the Unmanned copter—similar to those popular with encounters between UAVs and airliners. was believed to have struck a British Autonomous Systems Academy in photographers and filmmakers—flying “We’re basically going to intentionally fly Airways A320 approaching Heathrow.) Warrenton, Virginia. “What makes you into the type of turbofan engine common airplanes at each other,” says Sam Kim, lead The Ikhana team at Armstrong believes think a drone, which has much more on passenger jetliners like the Boeing 737. engineer on the project, who tells me the that UAVs equipped with the appropri- mass, is not going to do a lot worse? Since then, Bayandor has experimented pre-dawn start is imperative because mil- ate technology could easily avoid such Common sense tells you it will.” with different parameters, altering the itary flights overrun the airspace by mid- a mishap. And they intend to prove it: day, at which point Ikhana gets grounded. Today’s detect-and-avoid encounters are “WE’RE BASICALLY GOING TO “We’re last priority,” he grumbles. part of a two-month series of experiments The Ikhana project is part of a multi- called Flight Test 4, or FT4, which began INTENTIONALLY FLY AIRPLANES year NASA study called the Unmanned at Edwards in mid-April. The first three Aircraft Systems Integration in the series took place between 2012 and 2015. National Airspace System (UAS-NAS). The first flight of the morning gets AT EACH OTHER,” SAYS SAM KIM, THE Launched in 2011, the UAS-NAS conducts under way with one of the intruders, research to enable routine airspace access the Beechcraft B200, closing on Ikhana LEAD ENGINEER ON THE PROJECT. KIM DEVELOPED by unmanned aircraft systems. The proj- at more than 150 mph. ect collaborates with the Federal Aviation The risky nature of the maneuver COMBAT DRONES FOR BOEING’S PHANTOM WORKS Administration, the Radio Technical requires that the Beechcraft pilot make Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA), a visual identification when he’s within BEFORE JOINING NASA. and commercial aerospace entities to At Edwards Air Force Base in California, NASA has been conducting flight tests with one nautical mile of the drone. If for develop “minimum operational per- a General Atomics MQ-9 UAV (foreground) and a Beech King Air (rear), which flies some reason he can’t see Ikhana, the test Mechanical engineering associate airspeeds, weights, and sizes of the drone formance standards”—the best mix of intrusions into the Reaper’s path. is called off. On the radar display in the professor Javid Bayandor had the same and the jetliner, and ran the models. He technologies, regulations, and protocols lab, it becomes evident that neither air- thought when he founded Virginia simulated a drone carrying a camera. necessary for drones to operate safely in station alongside an Edwards taxiway. specific maneuvers. More likely, any craft is lined up properly. Gusty winds are Tech’s CRASH lab—Crashworthiness And he altered the material composition the United States. “We want to make sure The flight tests are designed to help forthcoming regulations will combine making it difficult for the pilots to stay for Aerospace Structures and Hybrids. of the turbofan blades, testing different [UAVs] play nicely, just like any other the FAA develop detect-and-avoid tech- both approaches: technical requirements on course. Mike Marston, a former F-16 CRASH focuses on aeronautics research, metal alloys used in modern jet engines. aircraft,” says Kim, who developed com- nology requirements for drones. Nobody and pilot protocols. But before the FAA pilot, leads the operations engineering examining, among other phenomena, In some scenarios, it took just over 0.02 bat drones for Boeing’s Phantom Works knows how these requirements will be can establish requirements, it needs data team. Suddenly, he’s yelling over the what happens when objects like hail, second for the UAV to shred several of the before joining NASA in 2006. applied or when: At the moment, there from actual flight experiments to know radio, “Abort! Abort! Abort!” rocks, birds, and more recently drones, simulated nine-foot-diameter fan blades. Ikhana, which has a maximum takeoff are no fixed deadlines by which such what works and what doesn’t. That’s Ikhana gradually banks left, while slam into aircraft engines, propellers, I ask Bayandor what prompted the proj- weight of 10,500 pounds, is capable of rules must be established. Perhaps UAV what Kim’s team intends to provide. the Beechcraft pilot veers right. Dan fuselages, windscreens, and control ect. “There were a lot of reports of drone flying autonomously. Today, however, manufacturers will be asked to integrate Posada guides Ikhana onto Runway 22R Eng, Ikhana’s systems engineer, who is surfaces, such as ailerons, rudders, and sightings escalating and everyone was NASA pilot Herman Posada will operate collision avoidance systems on every unit and takes off a few minutes before sunrise. sitting beside me nervously watching the leading edge flaps. seeing things close to airports,” he says. it remotely, sending it commands from they sell. Or drone pilots encountering I’m observing the flight with the research radar, abruptly blurts out to no one in In July 2015, Bayandor released the “We wanted to show the FAA that there is inside a steel-paneled ground-control manned aircraft will have to execute team, whose members track Ikhana on particular, “Don’t mess up my paint job!” results of a study that used sophisticated a real danger and they need to address it.” eight large LCD screens in Armstrong’s John Parker, Live Virtual Constructive lab. From here, At the Crash- president of we monitor, among other things, radar, worthiness Integrated GPS coordinates, and real-time video feed for Aerospace Robotics Imaging from the drone’s forward-mounted turret Structures and Systems in Kenai, camera. At the moment, Ikhana is doing Hybrids lab at Alaska, is working laps above the lakebed base at 170 mph, Virginia Tech with researchers waiting for the Beechcraft intruders to in Blacksburg, at the University arrive. director Javid of Denver to Jetliners, military aircraft, and many Bayandor (far develop a radar private airplanes already use a variety left) and his team small enough to of detect-and-avoid avionics, but these have created a fly on drones. technologies aren’t practical for most model of what His company drones because they’re often too large, would happen hopes to market too heavy, and too power-hungry (drones when small sophisticated are usually battery-operated). Presently, drones of various detect-and-avoid of the half-million drones registered on weights strike electronics the size the FAA’s UAV database—and the untold airliner turbofan of a playing card. number of unregistered UAVs—the CLARION OSOWSKI/PENINSULA KAYLEE ULBRICH; LEFT: NASA/KEN TOP: LAB CRASH TECH BAYANDOR/VIRGINIA JAVID DR. VIA COLLEY SIERRA engines. 44 | AIR & SPACE airspacemag.com SEPTEMBER 2016 AIR & SPACE | 45 Do Bayandor’s simulations match never before has the FAA created a operators must register their UAVs, but obtain a waiver and subsequently fly people come up with for UAVs—and This is why Ikhana is testing a mix reality? That’s what engineers want bureau dedicated solely to regulating a will be able to request a waiver for most their UAVs in airspace where they’re that we’re not a barrier to their dreams of technologies during its flights. These to know at the newly formed Center new class of aircraft. But the complexity of these restrictions. more likely to encounter manned air- or their inventiveness.” include TCAS (traffic collision avoidance of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft of trying to coordinate all the various Recreational drone operators, who craft.
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