Airborne Sense and Avoid Radar Panel

Although unmanned aerial systems UAS have proven increasingly useful in a variety of applications disaster response operations, land and crop surveys, aerial photography, and critical infrastructure protection their widespread usage within the National Airspace System is limited because of regulatory restrictions on their access to shared airspace. A key prerequisite for routine airspace access is compliance with the Federal Aviation Administration s FAA requirement for aircraft to see and avoid other air traffic. For a UAS, one means of compliance is the ability to sense and avoid via onboard or ground-based sensors and algorithms. Such a sense-and-avoid system must be able to detect aircraft posing a risk to the UAS, assess that risk, and when required, maneuver the UAS to maintain the required separation between air vehicles. Meeting the FAA s sense-and-avoid requirement in all-weather and day or night conditions naturally points to a radar solution. Also, an onboard radar sensor is the only solution for delivering a widearea sense-and-avoid capability, which is unachievable by ground-based systems that simply provide coordination among piloted and unmanned aircraft within limited geographic regions and air spaces.