Safety Analysis For Evaluating (SAFE) sUAS

NASA�s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the NAS (UAS in the NAS) project is aimed at developing new technologies to enable safe operations of UAS in the NAS. Under the UTM program NASA plans to investigate procedures that can make sUAS operations for all stakeholders. Safety and operations studies under UTM will require accurate trajectories for sUASs. Since there are no sUAS flights permitted by FAA there is no real world trajectory data available to model trajectories reliably and accurately. To this end IAI has been developing USAM over the last several years as part of a NASA sponsored effort. The architecture is well developed and has been used to demonstrate the safety and efficiency impacts of integrating large fixed wing UASs in the NAS. SAFE sUAS project will extend the USAM approach to UAS safety analysis to cover sUAS missions. Extending USAM capabilities to sUAS requires additional capability to model sUAS (multirotor, fixed wing and hybrid) trajectories. This effort will develop high fidelity models for one multi-rotor sUAS and use it to analyze operating them in the NAS.

The proposed architecture and tools have a wide variety of application for NASA � Perform safety analyses of sUAS flight plans as part of UTM project. � Integrate the high fidelity sUAS models into a modeling and simulation platform of choice � Investigate the safety and efficiency impacts of policy changes on sUAS operations � Test and validate Minimum Operational Performance (MOP) for sUAS platforms.

Commercial sUAS operators can use SAFE sUAS to test the safety of their flight plans before flying them. The FAA can use the models to introduce sUAS in existing modeling and simulation platforms. FAA can also test new technologies such as geofencing and study the impact they have on overall NAS safety metrics.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — 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.