Equivalent Safe Response Model for Evaluating the Closed Loop Handling Characteristics of UAS to Contribute to the Safe Integration of UAS into the National Airspace System

Abstract

As unmanned aerial systems are introduced into the national airspace system, specific outer-loop handling qualities and performance requirements are needed to maintain a safe environment. Current sources on the subject have yet to determine appropriate concrete requirements for this situation. Equivalent Safe Response attempts to aid in this area by defining necessary and applicable requirements for unmanned aerial system and by developing a method to evaluate a given unmanned aerial system’s performance and outerloop handling qualities. The Equivalent Safe Response requirements were primarily derived from the Federal Aviation Administration's Instrument Rating Practical Test Standards. Equivalent Safe Response provides a way of evaluating an unmanned aerial system by using the Piccolo Software-in-the-Loop simulations, a specific obstacle course designed to stress each requirement, and a MATLAB program that was written to analyze and evaluate the performance of the unmanned aerial system. As a test case, the ArcWulf unmanned aerial system, flown by the Aerial Robotics Club at North Carolina State University was evaluated using the Equivalent Safe Response model. The results of the evaluation indicated that the ArcWulf could successfully comply with the requirements in the three environmental conditions that were tested.