Lateral Avoidance Maneuver Solver for UAVs
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems for preventing loss of separation between aircraft, such as human intervention and Traffic Alert-Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), are inadequate as they either lack on-board capabilities for unmanned systems or rely on altitude changes that do not ensure lateral maneuvers and fail to return the vehicle to its original vector, violating FAA right-of-way rules and sensor field of regard requirements.
Innovation Solution
A software component integrated into a sense-and-avoid system for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that decomposes the problem into single-variable optimization, using the Regula Falsi method to generate lateral maneuvers, ensuring a desired miss distance and returning the UAV to its original vector, while avoiding unnecessary maneuvers and utilizing wind vectors for inertial referenced turns.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If TCAS uses altitude changes for separation, then separation is achieved, but lateral maneuvers are not ensured and the vehicle does not return to its original vector, violating FAA right-of-way rules
Solution Approach 1:
The avoidance maneuver is segmented into multiple phases: initial lateral deviation, parallel track segment, and return to original vector. This segmentation allows the system to provide both lateral separation and guaranteed return to original path, resolving the contradiction between separation assurance and lateral maneuver capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system transitions from vertical separation (altitude changes) to lateral separation by introducing a parallel track segment in the horizontal plane. This dimensional change enables lateral maneuvers while maintaining separation assurance and the ability to return to the original vector.
2Ease of operation
If ground reference turns are used for lateral maneuvers, then path following is simplified, but the vehicle cannot follow the commanded path due to wind effects, losing the miss distance guarantee
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-calculates wind-compensated inertial reference turns before executing the maneuver. By accounting for wind effects in advance and planning the parallel track segment duration and positioning, the system ensures both ease of operation and reliable miss distance guarantee despite wind conditions.
Data Source
AI summary
A system on-board an unmanned aerial vehicle for controlling a lateral maneuver to avoid a loss of separation between the unmanned aerial vehicle and an intruder into its airspace. The system receives as inputs the desired miss distance, desired bank angle, state vectors for the unmanned aerial vehicle, wind, and an intruder, and a target vector; and outputs a lateral route change which will achieve the desired miss distance and return the unmanned aerial vehicle back to path. In one embodiment, the system comprises a computer programmed with software that runs automatically and guides the unmanned aerial vehicle to perform a lateral maneuver that avoids loss of separation. In another embodiment, the software runs automatically and advises a pilot on the ground (who is flying the drone by remote control) that a maneuver is about to happen, which maneuver the pilot can either accept or reject.