Research

We're actively supporting North Dakota's UAS Detection and Counter UAS Task Force. We're supporting the development of Counter UAS Test Ranges here and in other geographic locations. And we've been testing Air Domain Awareness technologies to evaluate system performance against different classes of UAS.

We have experience working with UAS detection equipment such as radars, optical, acoustic, and radio frequency (RF) sensing.

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is more than just personal transportation. It is package delivery, urban operations, and short/long haul operations, to name a few. The NPUASTS has been conducting and supporting testing in a variety of research projects that are pushing AAM and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concepts forward, such as testing new aircraft designs for personal and cargo transportation concepts of operations. The NPUASTS is also actively participating in AAM workshops to keep up-to-date on the newest advancements.

Our personnel have years of experience in testing Detect and Avoid (DAA) concepts and technologies. DAA is a key component for BVLOS flights and consists of four main components: detect, track, evaluate, and maneuver (DTEM). We are supporting research in each of these areas and developing processes for characterizing DAA sensors and defining test methods for DAA equipment. We've been studying and implementing DAA solutions to enable BVLOS flights from the earliest days of the test site.

Remote ID - We've worked on Remote ID testing, including transmitting technologies with public service organizations and network capabilities within UAS Service Suppliers (USS) within a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) environment.

Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) - We envision communication between vehicles opening the door to many more applications and research projects in the near future. V2V is a key form to such communications advancements that will provide methods for one-to-many UAS operations, swarming, DAA, and multi-modal interactions between low-altitude operations and ground autonomous vehicles.

sUAS 'ADS-B-like' - ADS-B for sUAS is not approved by the FAA. Technologies to advance this functionality for small UAS, communicating aircraft position, intent, status, could be used to help create a more cooperate UAS environment at low altitudes. Research is being done to understand how to enable such technology for sUAS.

Technology solutions with features of Remote ID, V2V, and ADS-B greatly increases capabilities for cooperative UAS applications.

Research on Command and Control (C2) of UAS is important because there are many moving pieces that will need to fall into place in order for C2 technology to be scalable. There are unanswered questions regarding appropriate frequency for different airspaces, specific waveforms and message protocols, communication security, and priority, to name a few.

We're testing C2 in both visual line of sight and beyond visual line of sight environments. We're testing point-to-point and networked C2 solutions, different frequencies for C2 functionality, and supporting the development of C2 standards by being actively engaged with RTCA C2 working groups and helping get Section 374 included in the 2018 Reauthorization Act.

We started UTM research in 2015 with NASA and continue to advance this research into an operational UTM system by working with the Federal Aviation Administration, as well as with the Department of Defense. Through this process, we've also gained extensive experience in deploying and testing a wide variety of UAS Service Supplier (USS) functionalities, including Remote ID.

We're continuing to explore ways to expand UTM concepts for commercial applications and nationwide scalability.