Airline Operational Control (AOC)/UAS Ground Control Station (GCS) Collaboration

We propose to form a network and a set of tools that will create a shared situation awareness with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Ground Control Stations (GCSs) and airline dispatchers at Airline Operations Centers (AOCs). Our solution is motivated by the Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) community in commercial aviation, where the CDMnet was created back in 1997 to facilitate collaboration between airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The CDMnet continues to exist today to allow airlines to collaborate on Traffic Flow Management (TFM) decisions that are made by airlines and FAA Air Traffic Service Providers (ATSPs) every day. Today, with the introduction of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) flying in the National Airspace System (NAS), there is a need for collaboration between UAS, ATSP, and AOCs in UAS Traffic Management (UTM) in order to share airspace resources. Thus, the focus of this SBIR effort is to build a network that allows UAS GCSs to share information and collaborate with airline AOCs in order to create a shared situation awareness and to share and coordinate NAS airspace resources.

NASA is tasked to explore the challenge of integrating UASs into the NAS. Part of that integration challenge is ensuring that UASs can fly in the NAS in the same airspace as civilian aircraft, without segregation through Special Use Airspace (SUA) or Special Activity Airspace (SAA). Furthermore, the FAA has stipulated that they do not want to create any new airspace classes to facilitate UAS flight in the NAS. In order to achieve this goal, UAS will have to share airspace resources with other stakeholders; mainly commercial airlines in Class A airspace, and General Aviation (GA) in lower altitudes. The introduction of UAS in Class A airspace is likely to cause pushback from the airlines, who already find airspace resources congested in many parts of the NAS. NASA and the industry must find a way to share resources with UAS, Airlines, and GA in a way that they all can pursue their flight operations in a fair and equitable way. The emphasis of this SBIR effort is to form a basis for the sharing of resources by a collaboration between AOCs and GCSs.

Airline dispatchers are in need of situation awareness for UAS flying in the NAS. Furthermore, UAS operators will benefit from collaboration with the airlines in order to find a collaborative solution to flying in the NAS. Airlines and UAS operators are thus non-NASA commercial applications of interest.

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