Technical capability level 2 unmanned aircraft system traffic management (UTM) flight demonstration: Description and analysis

NASA's UAS Traffic Management (UTM) project concluded its second flight demonstration activity in late October 2016. This activity demonstrated the capabilities and functionality incorporated into its Technical Capability Level 2 (TCL 2) concept, which envisions future operations that are low density, capable of being performed over sparsely populated areas, and allow for a concurrent mix of longer duration, beyond visual-line-of-sight flights and shorter flights within visual-line-of-sight (VLOS). To incorporate these features into a flight demonstration, a scenario-based approach was taken to address different aspects of the TCL 2 environment and to meet defined objectives. This paper will describe elements of how the flight activity was conducted and present analyses regarding UTM operations, system messages, and alerting as they pertained to meeting the demonstration objectives and shedding light on research questions and lessons learned.