Weather Aware Route Planning (WARP)

In Phase I of this NASA SBIR project, Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc., designed and demonstrated the feasibility of a system for integrating environmental data into flight planning and execution for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS). The Weather Aware Route Planning (WARP) system will provide weather-based Indicators and Warnings (I&W) and navigational recommendations for UAS in order to improve their autonomy, safety, and energy efficiency. Using all available environmental and navigational data, WARP will assess environmental impacts to planned/executing flight plans and generate alerts and recommendations for those plans based on expected environmental impacts. Operating in conjunction with existing and emerging mission planners and ground control systems (GCS), WARP will use a combination of rules-based/heuristic and simulation-based approaches to assess environmental impacts to UAS flight plans and provide I&W and recommendations for each UAS to avoid negative environmental impacts and take advantage of positive environmental impacts. WARP will also provide real-time environmental impact assessments during mission execution, assisting ground-based pilots, and eventually UAS autonomous controllers, in performing dynamic re-planning for safer and more efficient flight.

NASA is a key partner in the development and maturation of NextGen technologies. Specifically, the Integrated Systems Research Program (ISRP) matures and integrates NextGen technologies into major vehicle/operational systems (http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/programs_isrp.htm), and the UAS Integration in the NAS Project (http://www.aeronautics.nasa.gov/isrp/uas/index.htm) within ISRP is focusing on demonstrating effective UAS operations in relevant test environments. In Phase I, we were introduced to this NASA program, specifically with relation to the integration of environmental data into air traffic control; in Phase II we will continue to pursue that avenue of potential Phase II-X partnerships to help develop UAS and Command and Control (C2) performance standards regarding environmental conditions and to integrate WARP (upon successful prototype development in Phase II) into a realistic test environment, such as the live virtual constructive (LVC) distributed environment (DE).

Our commercialization strategy for potential transition outside of NASA programs is focused on customers that are likely to provide transition funding in the form of Phase II-E partnerships (for NASA matching funds) and independent Phase III contracts. These customers include government agencies (e.g., FAA, DHS, DoD, DoT, etc.) and prime contractors working on UAS and their associated C2 systems, both within the NAS and operating anywhere in the world. Specifically, we are very familiar with Northrop Grumman, Boeing/Insitu, and Textron/AAI, since we are working with them on DARPA and Navy projects for distributed data fusion among unmanned systems.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.