Avionics News February 2020 - 37

There are four key issues in detect and avoid, according
to Dallas Brooks, who spoke at an FAA and Association for
Unmanned Vehicle Systems International UAS conference
in Baltimore in June 2019. Brooks, a noted authority on
UAS subjects, worked at the Office of the Secretary of
Defense a few years ago to make sure that all four military
services were on the same wavelength when it came to
detect and avoid.
To make detect and avoid happen in the commercial
drone arena, Brooks said the government and industry must
do the following:
1. Define detect and avoid.
2. Define well clear.
3. Define acceptable performance.
4. Determine the right combination for a solution,
including sensors, how they are integrated and the
algorithms that will be needed.
Continued on following page

Courtesy of Robotic Skies

tartup avionics companies are coming up with
innovative, lightweight, inexpensive sensors to
help the drone industry and the Federal Aviation
Administration solve a critical problem known as detect
and avoid.
While general aviation pilots flying under visual flight
rules depend at times on their own eyes to see and avoid
other aircraft and to remain well clear of them, the civil
drone industry has to find a way to see and avoid other
drones and aircraft relying entirely on technology since
there is no pilot aboard the air vehicle.
Some of the sensors being flight tested are proving to
be better than what the drone industry calls the "Mark
10 eyeball." One company contacted believes its electrooptical sensor relying on an off-the-shelf camera and a tiny
processing unit with computer vision software is better
than human eyesight. The product, Casia, fits in the palm
of your hand.
In a 2018 test in Alaska where a drone was equipped with
the Iris Automation company's Casia, the electro-optical unit
detected the Cessna converging from different angles 95%
of the time before human observers on the ground saw it.
The drone was flying below 400 feet and the Cessna at least
500 feet above the ground. The range of the sensor is about
2 kilometers, according to Alexander Harmsen, the chief
executive of the Silicon Valley startup Iris Automation.
Most drone avionics specialists believe miniature
sensors being developed for small drones will migrate to
general aviation eventually. The tiny uAvionix automatic
dependent surveillance-broadcast receivers and transmitters
have already made the jump. "I believe other things in
addition to detect-and-avoid systems will migrate to
general aviation since the market for drones is more and
more similar to the general aviation market," Harmsen
said. "The lines will be blurred over the next 10 years."
However, the FAA hasn't even decided yet what
technology will be required or approved for the drone
detect-and-avoid task. Detect and avoid has to be solved to
enable small commercial drones under 55 pounds to operate
routinely beyond visual line of sight of human operators
or observers. BVLOS is needed to enable everything from
delivering pizza to your house to inspecting the Alaska
pipeline with drones. Currently, the FAA is allowing limited
BVLOS operations for small commercial drones but had
issued 52 waivers as of October 2019. One official at a
leading commercial drone company with a BVLOS waiver
said they are difficult to obtain and have many restrictions.

A Robotic Skies technician inspects a motor from an
Acecore Technologies quadcopter.

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Avionics News February 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Avionics News February 2020