Novel Generic Collision Avoidance Algorithm
Overview
With the ever-increasing number of unmanned aircraft alongside existing manned air traffic collision avoidance is increasingly important in the future. Especially for unmanned aircraft it is crucial to be able to react to conflicting traffic of any kind in time. The ability to do so allows a safer operation in more challenging environments and opens up new use cases for unmanned aerial vehicles.
Project Description
The work performed at the Center for Aviation consisted of the design of a novel generic collision avoidance algorithm. Generic meaning that it could be used by fixed wing aircraft, rotary wing aircraft, manned and unmanned aircraft and others. The algorithm developed by the Center for Aviation is based on the NASA Langley Research Center studies on TCAS II (Traffic Collision Avoidance System II), which was considered as a suitable basis for development of such a new algorithm. The developed collision avoidance algorithm generates guidance orders providing lateral and vertical separation allowing the aircraft to avoid the collision with a potentially conflicting aircraft.
To assess the performance of the proposed algorithm, a Matlab Simulink simulation testing environment has been created. The analysis of missions of Monte-Carlo simulation runs indicated a significant safety improvement in terms of the probability for Near Mid Air Collisions.