Flexible open architecture for UASs integration into the airspace: Paparazzi autopilot system

Air safety authorities are forced to develop regulations for UAS due to incidents disturbing public safety and demands from UAS operators. Despite numerous studies from the FAA and EASA, none of them decided on a regulation for UASs. The reliability of the flight is considered to be one of the main obstacles for UAVs integration. This is not an easy topic considering the unknowns of the systems, environment and possible failures. We believe the flexibility required for such solutions calls for open architectures. More specifically, this paper shows how the use of the Paparazzi open source auto-pilot system can ease the integration of low altitude UAS. To ensure safety, this integration needs to be achieved through airspace management and UAS reliability. Preliminary airspace designs, e.g. Amazon's, identify different zones depending on the UAS capabilities, population density and altitude. Plus, national rules evolution push to cope with a variety of requirements. Open source and modular architectures are key to adapt to these requirements. From a UTM point of view, Paparazzi provide features to ease congestion management, such as dynamic geofencing, trajectory communication and collision avoidance. Concerning reliability, current regulations focus on flight constraints but might be expected to involve regulations on software and hardware components as well. In such case, the increased cost will be inevitable for the demands of certification. In the Paparazzi software case, parts of the code have been formally proved and stable versions have thousands of flight hours. Such heritage might ease the certification process for smaller companies. On top of its flexibility and reliability, Paparazzi offers a unique set of features, as an open source software, to achieve safe integration of low altitude UAS in the G airspace. To conclude this work, desirable new features and future work are discussed.