Netherlands male UAS: Airspace integration challenges & innovations

This paper addresses the airspace integration challenges related to the acquisition of a Medium Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aircraft System in the Netherlands Ministry of Defence. After being shelved for over four years, the program has recently been reopened with a somewhat altered ambition level. Integration of unmanned aircraft into the existing airspace system, with the ability to deal with both transponding and non-transponding other aircraft, is still one of the key challenges in unmanned aircraft operations. The current ambition however, is to achieve airspace integration in a gradual fashion, building on existing systems and technology. For the acquisition program, this ambition translates into the requirement to pursue systems that demonstrate scalability in terms of e.g., operational concept, available infrastructure, available data, interfaces and levels of autonomy. Since 2001, a collaborative research project between Delft University of Technology and the Netherlands Ministry of Defence has addressed several aspects of mission management of unmanned aircraft, including airspace integration. Within the project, a concept for sense and avoid has been developed that enables a seamless transition from human-in-the-loop self- separation to autonomous conflict avoidance in time- critical situations. The scalability of such a concept, allows for an evolutionary approach or a gradual implementation, where the level of integration with other systems, and corresponding capabilities, can be increased in a gradual fashion. The approach discussed in this paper aims to enable an airspace integration capability without having to do a "big bang" development where the entire envisioned air traffic management system is realized in one spiral, development cycle, or acquisition. It is an important part of gradually increasing the effectiveness of unmanned aircraft operations and making operations more flexible.