Project
Unmanned Systems Integration
Client
NASA
MTSI provides engineering and technical expertise to NASA’s UAS in the National Airspace System (NAS) Project by collaborating with NASA to reduce the technical barriers related to the safety and operational challenges associated with enabling UAS access to the NAS.
These initiatives include:
- Improving a UAS pilot’s situational awareness within the control station as well as integrating a Collision Avoidance Radar and an Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system into the Ikhana UAS (Predator B variant) to demonstrate how UAS can safely perform sense and avoid. MTSI software engineers created an operational environment for UAS pilots that provide increased situational awareness, over and above what a pilot has in a manned cockpit, and made it adaptable for a variety of UAS types. This effort has also been successful in strengthening the collaboration between several NASA centers, Industry, and the FAA; enabling them to work closer together in developing situational awareness, separation assurance and communication requirements for UAS.
Acting as the liaison between NASA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) studies focused on validating the DOD UAS Airspace Integration Concept of Operations (AI CONOPS). - Providing strategic guidance and UAS AI subject matter expertise to the UAS Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) to assist in the development of a Civil UAS Implementation Plan. This plan defines the essential activities and resources needed to integrate UAS into the NAS in accordance with the goals and objectives laid out by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) UAS Roadmap.