1. Intelligent UAS Situation Awareness and Information Delivery Qian Hu & Chris Jella MSR Disclaimer The contents of this document reflect the views of the author and The MITRE Corporation and do not necessarily reflect the views of the FAA or the DOT. Neither the Federal Aviation Administration nor the Department of Transportation makes any warranty or guarantee, expressed or implied, concerning the content or accuracy of these views.

2. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Value Proposition Background  UAS systems for military operations, border patrol, and other applications have been a great success. Expanded UAS presence in non-segregated civil airspace is limited due to safety risks  Lost command and control links between the unmanned aircraft and the pilot as well as the loss of ATC communications are potential safety risks Project  Develop an onboard Intelligent Situation Awareness and Information Delivery System to monitor UAS flight status and when a lost link occurs, convert the mission plan intent data into a voice message and deliver through emergency VHF frequency to ATC and nearby aircraft

3. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Background Line of Sight Beyond Line of Sight Pilot Fly-by-Wireless When the link is lost, the UA is flying autonomously. Command & Control Link Nobody knows where the UA is going Air Traffic Control Picture of São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport's tower from the Wikimedia Commons, a freely licensed media file repository.

4. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Objective Develop Intelligent UAS Situation Awareness and Information Delivery System to broadcast voice messages of UAS intent to ATC and nearby aircraft and to return information to ATC voice queries Voice messages through emergency frequency provide UAS flight intent to ATC and other nearby pilots

5. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Activities ■ Research and develop simulation models of UAS to simulate on-board flight management system with which the Intelligent UAS Situation Awareness and Information Delivery system can interact ■ Developed the Intelligent Analyzer software to monitor on-board flight status and deliver real time voice message when C2 link is lost ■ Developed emergency voice messages following FAA protocols and phraseology with speech synthesizer ■ Experimented with simulated two-way voice commination between UAS to ATC to mitigate traffic conflicts during lost C2 link

6. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Highlight: On-board Intelligent Analyzer Live Monitors UAS System On-board Intelligent Analyzer

7. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Demonstration

8. © 2010 The MITRE Corporation. All rights reserved Future Plans ■ Expand the Intelligent Analyzer to receive voice queries, interpret them, obtain the requested on-board UAS status, and return the relevant information via voice messages such as: Hawk 10, repeat intent What is your rate of descent? Repeat true airspeed and fuel level  Fine-tune the research prototype and integrate with on-board management system for field experimentation, adaptation, and integration, human- in-the-loop testing