Advances in Detect and Avoid for Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Advanced Air Mobility
In the latest years, sense and avoid (SAA), or detect and avoid (DAA), has represented one of the main roadblocks to the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations. This lecture outlines and reviews architectures, technologies, and algorithms for SAA. First, basic SAA definitions and taxonomies are discussed. Ground-based/airborne and cooperative/non-cooperative architectures are covered. The SAA process is dissected into its fundamental tasks, which are discussed in details. Different sensing algorithms and technologies are presented, including radar and optical systems. Potential and challenges of multi-sensor-based systems and data fusion are pointed out. Techniques for conflict detection, and approaches for remotely operated or autonomous avoidance are introduced. The tutorial analyzes recent trends such as the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and ends with an overview of current perspectives and recent progress relevant to SAA for UAS integration in the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system and in the framework of UAS Traffic Management (UTM) / U-Space and Advanced/Urban Air Mobility. Links with manned aviation are covered too.
Instructor
Giancarmine Fasano
Giancarmine Fasano is Associate Professor at the University of Naples "Federico II", where he holds courses in "Unmanned Aircraft Systems", "Space Flight Dynamics", and “Design of Autonomous Aircraft”, within the framework of M.S. Programmes in Aerospace Engineering and Autonomous Vehicles Engineering. He also holds courses (UAS and Mini/micro-UAS Lab) at the Italian Air Force Academy. His research activities in the field of aeronautics are focused on UAS, and in particular on sense and avoid, cooperative multi-drone systems, path planning and navigation with recent emphasis on Advanced Air Mobility scenarios. In the space field he is mainly interested in distributed space systems and proximity operations, with emphasis on relative motion design/control and relative navigation, and in space domain awareness.
He has carried out several research programs with funding from both public institutions (Italian Space Agency, Italian Aerospace Research Center, Ministry of Education, University and Research, European Union) and private (large and small/medium) companies. Within the UAS field, he is currently Principal Investigator of the national projects "CREATEFORUAS" (Cooperation and REliable Autonomous TEchnologies to Foster Operations Relying on Unmanned Aircraft Systems), and “SMARTGO” (gnsS-enabled urban air Mobility through Ai-powered environment-awaRe Techniques for strateGic and tactical path planning Operations). He has been University of Naples Scientific Responsible for the European Horizon 2020 project "AMPERE" (Asset Mapping Platform for Emerging Countries Electrification), where a multi-drone system for industrial inspection has been tested in flight.
He is Vice-Chair of the Avionics Systems Panel (ASP) of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems for the Avionics area, Associate Editor of the IEEE AESS Magazine for the UAS area of specialty, and IEEE Senior Member. Since 2019, he has been Member of the Organizing Committee, Chair of the Student Research Competition, and Track Chair for the IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference, where two of his papers have been awarded as “Best of Track”. Within DASC, he has also been Tutorial Instructor delivering lectures on “Detect and Avoid for Unmanned Aircraft Systems” and “Application & Certification Concerns for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Techniques in Safety Critical Avionics Systems” (the latter in cooperation with other members of the ASP). In 2021 he has been invited speaker at IEEE MetroAerospace, with a tutorial entitled “Advances in UAS Technologies: Sense and Avoid and Multi-drone Systems."
He is Member of the AIAA Sensor Systems and Information Fusion Technical Committee and AIAA Senior Member. In the latest years, he has also been Member of the IAA (International Academy of Astronautics) Committee on Small Satellites, Member of the International Program Committee for the International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), and Associate Editor for ICUAS. He has co-authored more than 170 publications and five book chapters, which gathered about 2500 citations with h-index 25 (Google Scholar).
Publication Year: 2023