ERAU Unmanned Systems by Raymond DeMarco

On the topic of Urban Air Mobility (UAM), the first project that comes to mind is Zurich Switzerland’s UAV that carries clinical laboratory specimens across different terrains. Matternet, the North Carolina based company, also in partnership with UPS, introduced the first FAA sanctioned UAV system for routine revenue flights (Matternet, 2019). Human Factors Fully autonomous through Matternet’s Cloud platform.  The UAV will be loaded with secure container of the specimen such as blood sample.  It was take-off, fly a predetermined route, land vertically and unload the package at its destination.  This is a fully autonomous system that with follow a predetermined path for every flight.  Human interaction is limited to package, loading, unloading while operators oversee flight operations from a ground control station. Matternet Cloud is the proprietary software platform that receives customer requests, generates routes, monitors flight, commands and controls all ...

UAS Incorporated with NextGen The FAA expects to have NextGen in place by 2025.   UAS flight in NAS is one of the major components.   Programs such are the Integration Pilot Program which bring together state and local governments with UAS companies provide data to the USDOT from exercises that test with events such as BVLOS package delivery, operating UAS in darkness, data security, and loss of link.   Incorporation with NextGen will involve UAS to demonstrate performance that will meet requirements for NAS flight.   Detect, sense and avoid (DSA) is a performance factor for safe operation for aircraft to stay well-clear and avoid collision.   Interoperability in the form of a UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system must be established to manage low altitude airspace.   This system must monitor and give permission to airworthy aircraft who wish to operate in designated airspace. Greatest Challenges The process will not be seamless; there will be ...

The ERAU ARVL experience was a first for me.  I was excited to fly the different UAVs in a virtual world but disappointed because it felt cheap.  The camera become choppy and unusable during the hiker search and the aircraft would randomly explode in air shortly after takeoff.  At first this was funny but once it kept happening it became silly. Each of the aircraft I had flown handled just as I had imagined!  The fixed wing aircraft had great range and could not take take tight turns or obviously hover like a rotary wing.  The Octorotor was fast as I had imagined and a little touchy on the controls.  This the fun to fly the aircraft and move the camera at the crash site simultaneously. Some features I wish this ARVL had was better autonomy and realism.  In many UAS missions for gathering data, routes are predetermined and data is gathered autonomously to create an orthgram for analysis.  I think adding this feature to the ARVL, simulating the...