Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, recently launched several drones beyond line-of-sight without a visual observer. The drones successfully flew around obstacles and each other autonomously, without pilot control, during takeoff, along the planned route, and after landing.

Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, recently launched several drones beyond line-of-sight without a visual observer. The drones successfully flew around obstacles and each other autonomously, without pilot control, during takeoff, along the planned route, and after landing. This test is an important step towards improving the autonomous flight capabilities of air taxis.

“Beyond line-of-sight vehicle flight, where neither the vehicle nor the airspace is controlled by direct human observation, demonstrates years of research on automation and safety systems and requires special permission from the FAA and NASA,” said President Lou Glaab. NASA Langley’s Aeronautical Systems Engineering Department.

It is safer and more economical to test self-flying technology designed for large passenger air taxis on smaller drones, watching them dodge each other and other obstacles.

NASA is also testing elements of automation using helicopters. These replacement aircraft are helping NASA develop autonomy long before flying air taxis are integrated into the skies.

“If you have multiple vehicles arriving and departing from a helipad located adjacent to an airport or within a community, we need to make sure the automation technologies for those vehicles can safely handle high volumes of air traffic in a busy area.” said. Glaab.

Based on past testing, the team has successfully completed many flights using purchased ALTA 8 unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, without a visual observer and by flying the drones out of line of sight, so-called “NOVO-BVLOS” flights.

Software installed on small drones will communicate in airspace, control the flight path, avoid using other vehicles and gain additional skills needed to operate in busy airspace. This is required for what is envisioned as Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), where drones and air taxis will regularly operate simultaneously.

While flight tests were monitored from NASA’s Langley Autonomous Missions Remote Operations Control Center, the drones took off and landed at the Urban Environment test area for testing autonomous integrated navigation.

NASA will publicly release new technology developed during this project to provide industrial manufacturers with access to the software when designing their vehicles.

“NASA’s ability to transfer these technologies will greatly benefit the industry,” said Jake Schaefer, the project’s flight manager. “By conducting flight tests in national airspace, close to airports and urban environments, we have the opportunity to test technologies and procedures in a controlled but relevant environment for future AAM vehicles.”

One of these technologies was NASA’s ICAROURS, which stands for Integrated Configurable Architecture for Reliable Operation of Unmanned Systems. This software provides an autonomous detection and avoidance function and is part of the overall system to maintain “sufficient distance” from other air traffic.

Another technology used was NASA’s Safe2Ditch system; This system allows the vehicle to observe the ground and independently decide the safest place to land in the event of an in-flight emergency.

NASA’s AAM mission has several projects that contribute to various areas of science. This project, called High Density Vertiplex, focused specifically on testing and evaluating where these vehicles of the future will take off and land at high frequencies, called vertiport or vertiplex for multiple vertiports side by side, and the technological advances required for this. successful. Source