Visual Flight Rules-based Collision Avoidance System for VTOL UAV

Abstract

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to perform complex tasks is very common today. The private transport sector will soon experience a significant change with the arrival of a new concept, the electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft. These autonomous vehicles will, at first, be used in conjunction with other manned aircraft. That implies that the eVTOL aircraft will have to use the current civil airspace, where the aviation authorities require full compliance with the regulations that apply to General Aviation. This paper proposes a complete prototype of a Collision Avoidance System (CAS) for VTOL UAVs using civil airspace under the regulations of the Visual Flight Rules (VFR). The entire study corresponding to this CAS was implemented and tested in micro quadcopters that have the premise of bringing results with an experimental value that can grant proof of concept to the entire system.