skip to main content
10.1145/2899361.2899363acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesataccsConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

A highly-automated RPAS mission manager for integrated airspace

Published: 30 September 2015 Publication History

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of defining Mission Plans for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) and designing a software architecture for executing such plans. A RPAS Mission Plan for integrated airspace usually includes flight procedures in controlled airspace as well as procedures for the operations area, which usually is in a non-controlled airspace. Procedures for controlled airspaces must adhere to standard regulations, but nothing has been yet standardised for the operation in non-controlled airspaces. Some coherent extension to traditional Flight Plans is needed to specify all flight procedures in a coherent manner. This paper advocates extending ARINC-424 route definitions with RPAS specific features. On the other hand, RPAS do need a higher level of automation than manned aircraft due to many reasons: lower situational awareness, need for higher autonomy upon C2 link failures, or higher accuracy operation. This fact has important implications on the degree of automation and the definition of the Mission Plan. Firstly, different operational modes with different levels of automation are required. Secondly, traditional Flight Plans should be also extended to specify automatic flight procedures triggered by events like C2 link failures, or collision avoidance that could lead to unsafe conditions. The paper also discusses in detail the design of a Mission Manager for supporting the previous features based on a three-tiered (3T) architecture. The porting process of this architecture to an ARINC-653 compliant execution platform based on XtratuM is also introduced.

References

[1]
F. Adolf and F. Andert. Onboard mission management for a VTOL UAV using sequence and supervisory control. INTECH Open Access Publisher, 2010.
[2]
F. Adolf and F. Thielecke. A sequence control system for onboard mission management of an unmanned helicopter. In AIAA Infotech@Aerospace, May 2007.
[3]
J. Berndt and T. Peden. JSBSim open source flight dynamics model {online}. http://jsbsim.sourceforge.net. Accessed: 2012-02.
[4]
K. Berry, M. Sawyer, and E. Austrian. Human factors assessment of RNAV approach and departure procedures. Technical report, FAA Human Factors Division (ANG-C1), 2013.
[5]
R. Bonasso, R. Kerri, K. Jenks, and G. Johnson. Using the 3T architecture for tracking Shuttle RMS procedures. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Joint Symposia on Intelligence and Systems, pages 180--187. IEEE, 1998.
[6]
B. Fons-Albert. Plataforma para diseño y ejecución de aplicaciones de aviónica. Master's thesis, Universitat Politècnica de València, September 2013.
[7]
B. Fons-Albert, H. Usach-Molina, J. Vila-Carbó, and A. Crespo-Lorente. Development of Integrated Modular Avionics applications based on Simulink and XtratuM. In Data Systems in Aerospace Conference 2013. Eurospace, May 2013.
[8]
E. Gat. Integrating planning and reacting in a heterogeneous asynchronous architecture for controlling real-world mobile robots. In AAAI, volume 1992, pages 809--815, 1992.
[9]
International Civil Aviation Organization. Doc. 9613, AN/937: Performance-based Navigation (PBN) Manual, 4th edition, 2013.
[10]
International Civil Aviation Organization. Doc. 10019, AN/507: Manual on Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), 1st edition, 2015.
[11]
C. Ippolito and G. Pisanich. Cognitive emotion layer architecture for intelligent UAV planning, behavior and control. In Aerospace Conference, pages 1--16. IEEE, 2005.
[12]
C. W. Johnson. The hidden human factors in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In 26th International Conference on Systems Safety, Vancouver, Canada 2008. International Systems Safety Society, 2008.
[13]
D. Koehl. SESAR initiatives for RPAS integration. In ICAO Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems Symposium, Montreal, March 2015.
[14]
S. M. LaValle. Planning algorithms. Cambridge University Press, 2006.
[15]
M. Masmano, I. Ripoll, A. Crespo, and J. Metge. XtratuM: a hypervisor for safety critical embedded systems. In 12th Real-Time Linux Workshop, 2009.
[16]
M. Masmano, Y. Valiente, P. Balbastre, I. Ripoll, A. Crespo, and J. Metge. LithOS: a ARINC-653 guest operating for XtratuM. In 12th Real-Time Linux Workshop, Kenia, 2009.
[17]
J. S. McCarley and C. D. Wickens. Human factors implications of UAVs in the national airspace. Technical Report AHFD-05-05/FAA-05-01, University of Illinois, Institute of Aviation, Aviation Human Factors Division, 2005.
[18]
M. Niendorf, F.-M. Adolf, and T. Gerhard. Behavior-based onboard mission management for an unmanned fixed-wing aircraft. In AIAA Infotech@Aerospace, May 2012.
[19]
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. STANAG 4703: Light Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airworthiness Requirements. NATO Standarization Agency, 2014.
[20]
J.-W. Park, H.-D. Oh, and M.-J. Tahk. UAV collision avoidance based on geometric approach. In SICE Annual Conference, 2008, pages 2122--2126. IEEE, 2008.
[21]
E. Pastor, P. Royo, E. Santamaria, M. P. Batlle, C. Barrado, and X. Prats. An architecture to automate UAS operations in non-segregated airspace. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems, pages 5--14. IRIT Press, 2011.
[22]
E. Pastor, E. Santamaria, P. Royo, J. Lopez, and C. Barrado. On the design of a UAS flight plan monitoring and edition system. In Aerospace Conference, pages 1--20. IEEE, 2010.
[23]
J. Roskam. Airplane flight dynamics and automatic flight controls. Design, Analysis and Reseach Corporation, 3rd edition, 2001.
[24]
T. B. Sheridan and W. L. Verplank. Human and computer control of undersea teleoperators. Technical report, Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT, 1978.
[25]
B. L. Stevens and F. L. Lewis. Aircraft control and simulation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2nd edition, 2003.
[26]
I. A. Troxel and A. D. George. Adaptable and autonomic mission manager for dependable aerospace computing. In 2nd IEEE International Symposium on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing, pages 11--18. IEEE, 2006.
[27]
H. Usach-Molina. Integridad y tolerancia a fallos en sistemas de aviónica. Master's thesis, Universitat Politècnica de València, September 2014.
[28]
H. Usach-Molina, B. Fons-Albert, J. Vila-Carbó, and A. Crespo-Lorente. An autopilot testbed for IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics) architectures. In Automatic Control in Aerospace, volume 19, pages 435--440, 2013.
[29]
C. Whitlock. When drones fall from the sky. The Washington Post, June 20, 2014.

Cited By

View all
  • (2018)Automatic Deployment of an RPAS Mission Manager to an ARINC-653 Compliant SystemJournal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems10.5555/3288993.328901692:3-4(587-598)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2018
  • (2017)Automatic Deployment of an RPAS Mission Manager to an ARINC-653 Compliant SystemJournal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems10.1007/s10846-017-0694-392:3-4(587-598)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
ATACCS '15: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems
September 2015
176 pages
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

In-Cooperation

  • Eurocontrol: Eurocontrol

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 September 2015

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. Automatic flight procedures
  2. Mission manager
  3. Mission plan
  4. RPAS
  5. Software architectures

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Funding Sources

Conference

ATACCS '15

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 14 of 42 submissions, 33%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)5
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 24 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2018)Automatic Deployment of an RPAS Mission Manager to an ARINC-653 Compliant SystemJournal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems10.5555/3288993.328901692:3-4(587-598)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2018
  • (2017)Automatic Deployment of an RPAS Mission Manager to an ARINC-653 Compliant SystemJournal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems10.1007/s10846-017-0694-392:3-4(587-598)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2017

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media