The MIDCAS project Johan Pellebergs

Saab Aeronautics

MIDCAS

EDA is the contracting agency for the MIDCAS project on behalf of the contributing members states:

Sweden (lead)

Germany

France

Italy

Spain

Approx 50 MEuro budget – biggest single project within EDA

Contract signed at the Paris Air Show, June 2009 with an industry consortium of 13 partners from the 5 nations

Project started 15 Sep 2009 and will run for 4 years

European Defense Agency

MIDCAS mission statement

“The MIDCAS mission is to demonstrate the baseline of

solutions for the UAS Midair Collision Avoidance

Function (including separation), acceptable by the

manned aviation community and being compatible with

UAS operations in non-segregated airspace by 2015”

MIDCAS scope has been defined with due consideration for the views

of the main European stakeholders: EASA, EUROCONTROL,

EUROCAE WG73

MIDCAS main objectives

The MIDCAS project is designed with focus on 3 main

tracks with high level of interaction and

interdependency:

Progress on Standards for S&A

Design of a generic S&A function to be tested in

simulations

Design of a S&A demonstrator to be tested in

manned and UAS flight

Work packages

WP1 Project Management & technical coordination

WP2 MIDCAS function system engineering

WP3 Overall sense function definition

WP4 Non cooperative Intruders Sense function

definition

WP5 Cooperative intruders sense function definition

WP6 Avoid function definition

WP7 Sense & Avoid Validation on Simulator

WP8 Development of the S&A demonstrator

WP9 Validation on manned testbed A/C

WP10 Adaptation of the UAS and Midcas demonstrator

integration

WP11 UAV flight demonstration

MIDCAS Schedule

Func. Design

incl S/W

Implementation Design Verification Formal Verification

& AW Testing Flight Test Management

CER PDR CDR

MIDCAS Demo

H/W Design Modification

& Integration Simulator Test Systems Eng.

Increment 1

Functional Flight Tests Sensor Flight Tests

2010 2011 2012 2013

Non-segr Flight

Increment 2

Sensor H/W

System H/W 1 (manned)

System H/W 2 (UAV)

Demonstrator SE

Sim development

1 2 3

1

SE Framework (Standardization)

Concept SE

Project management and Technical coordination

H/W Design

Tests in simulators

Tests in manned a/c

Functional Design

Systems Eng.

Tests in UAV

Management

Work Shop with

Stakeholders

Assessment SE Functional SE

Increment 3

Increment 4a

2

S&A Flights

Incr 4b

1 2

4

Safety layers

ATC

manages

separation

ATM

Strategic

conflict

management

TA issued

for TCAS intruder

RA issued

for TCAS intruder Manned

See and avoid

Existing safety layers (manned aviation)

Manned

Self Separation

Safety layers

S&A

Collision Avoidance

S&A

Traffic Avoidance

S&A

Situational

Awareness

Introduced by MIDCAS

ATC

manages

separation

ATM

Strategic

conflict

management

TA issued

for TCAS intruder

RA issued

for TCAS intruder Manned

See and avoid

Existing safety layers (manned aviation)

Manned

Self Separation

Overall design consideration

The MIDCAS architecture is designed considering 4 main

aspects:

Safety

Operation Interoperability

Performance

Design

Keeping in mind that the design has to be:

Acceptable

Feasible

Main S&A Functions

Provide Situational Awareness (SA)

Provide Traffic Avoidance (TrA)

Provide Collision Avoidance (CA)

External Function 3: Provide Collision Avoidance

OV-2 EF3

Air vehicle

state data

Mission

environment

N5

Minimum Safe

Altitude

DatalinkN8, C10

Sensor

coordination

data.

S&A

Ground Terminal

Link data

S&A Air

Terminal Link data

N0.AS

S&A System

Airborne Segment

N0.GS

S&A System

Ground Segment

TrafficN1

Air vehicleN3

UAV Pilot

N2

Data representing

impending CA

manoeuvres

Command to

•Abort CA

•Execute early

•Return to course

Mode settings

Automatic

Collision

Avoidance

Manoeuvre

Continuous gathering

of data through

available sensory inputs including

cooperative data.

TCAS

system

N13

RA Broadcast

Ground

control

station

N7

Minimum Safe

Altitude

Host

Intruder

A manoeuvre – including

recovery back to wings level

flight is continually considered.

When the manoeuvre prediction

indicates that the last chance to

resolve the situation is reached,

the manoeuvre is activated

automatically.

CA execution example, animation

S&A

Collision

Avoidance

Case 2: Non TCAS intruder-Sit. in class A to E

S&A Collision Avoidance / Perfo. Design

CA execution example

after manoeuvre

Collision

avoidance

manoeuvre

trajectory

Collision Volume (CV)

Uncertainties

(safety margin)

Host

Intruder

Closest Point of

Approach (CPA) Collision volume is a given

volume extending 500 ft

horizontally and 350 ft vertically.

Depending on how the analysis

is made you can envision it

either around the host or the

intruder (but not both).

In the system it just becomes a

range, which varies due to the

relative geometry.

S&A

Collision

Avoidance

Case 2: Non TCAS intruder-Sit. in class A to E

S&A Collision Avoidance / Perfo. Design

Protected Volume (PV)

Operational capabilities - Collision Avoidance

Collision avoidance timeline

CA Alert Automatic CA

threshold

CA manoeuvre

completed

Automatic CA

threshold + 10s

Once this threshold is reached,

automatic manoeuvre is

engaged at maximum UAV

manoeuvring capabilities.

7 km – 18 s to

CPA (max)

Pilot take into account the

proposed manoeuvre, approve

or override it.

Closest Point of

Approach (CPA)

Operational capabilities – ICAO ROA

ROA compliance

Sectors of interest

70

70

30 - 110

30 - 110

0 - 30

0 - 30

+/ - 15

-

Traffic Avoidance assistance :

The direction of the manoeuvre is biased to take own right of ways Rules of the Air into account.

Collision Avoidance :

The direction of the manoeuvre is weighted to the right for head-on cases, and behind the intruder for beam cases coming from the right. The CA capability does not consider own right-of-way

1 Intruder head-on or approximately, or intruder crossing

ahead or being overtaken

2 All intruders converging from the right sector have the

priority

3 Intruder converging from left sector : the UAV has the right-

of-way, except for priority intruders

4 Overtaking intruders : the UAV has the right-of-way, the

intruder has to comply with ROA

1

2

3 4

Overtaking

traffic

All traffic

Priority traffic

Sensor flight tests

An initial sensor flight test campaign has been performed with the purpose to gather data to be used for:

development of image processing algorithms

sensor models for simulation

Two different types of sensors have been integrated into the nose of a CASA C-212 test aircraft

two visible band (EO) cameras

one infrared (IR) camera

EO IR

Flight test demonstrations

Alenia Sky-Y

CASA C-212

S&A design to be evaluated in: • 2 Manned aircraft flight test campaigns

• 2 UAS flight test campaigns

MIDCAS support to Civil aviation standards

Tech standards,

MASPS, MOPS

Ops rules, regs, stds

AMC for ESARRs

ED docs for ETSO

Main stakeholders

CAAs

pilots associations

Airlines,

Aerospace Industry…

coordination

MIDCAS

ICAO

Standardization process

Generic Design work provides information to be used for

standardization support

Information is used to define Working papers that are

presented in different stakeholder and standardization forums

EUROCAE WG73

Stakeholder workshops: 6 arranged over the project duration

Stakeholder Advisory Group

Study Notes presented in ICAO UAS study group

Information available on www.midcas.org

Feedback from stakeholders is incorporated in MIDCAS continued work

MIDCAS Stakeholder Workshops

Six dedicated workshops aims at informing and getting feedback from the major aviation stakeholders about MIDCAS project progress (www.midcas.org)

WS 1 General presentation of the project: objectives, methodology and time schedule (16 February 2010)

WS 2 Midair collision avoidance CONOPS and MIDCAS system operational capabilities (5 October 2010)

WS 3 Preliminary design: Operational, Performance, Interoperability and Safety aspects (23 Feb 2012)

WS 4 Safety methodology and simulation capabilities, system integration and interface features with the UAS including HMI aspects

WS 5 Presentation of the overall results of safety and performance studies based on simulations results

WS 6 Presentation of UAS flight tests results and general conclusions

of the project

Key issues and challenges

TCAS compatibility; definition

Safety objective breakdown; contributors and allocation

How to handle different UAV types; slow vs fast, maneuverability

Sensors; types and performances

Rules of Air; interpretation

Field of view for Sensors; safe, acceptable, feasible

Transition Traffic Avoidance -> Collision Avoidance concept.

Effect of future ATM; NEXTGEN/SESAR, ADS-B based

Standard; High level requirements or pseudo code

MIDCAS main outcome

Main outcome of the MIDCAS project with respect to the 3 main tracks:

Progress on Standards for S&A Support the establishment of standards that enables design of S&A systems

Targets air space classes A-G, initial focus on A-C in line with WG 73

Challenge to arrive at reasonable performance and safety requirements

Design of a generic S&A function to be tested in simulations Covers self separation, collision avoidance and situation awareness

TCAS compatible

Feasible for different types of UAS

Possible to evolve over time as technology progresses

Designed to TRL 6

Design of a S&A demonstrator to be tested in manned and UAS flight Perform relevant demonstrations in flight

Targets final demonstration with UAS in non segregated air space

Pushes positions of authorities approving flights