Low-Cost System Architecture Solutions for Small Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management

As commercial and hobbyist interest in small, unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) grows, traffic density in our low-altitude airspace is rapidly increasing. With many of these vehicles providing the human operator knowledge of their location through line-of-sight observation, often without integrated collision avoidance technology, sUAS are presenting an increasing concern for the safety and security of individuals on the ground below, as well as all air vehicles in low altitude airspace. Government, industry partners, and academia have collaborated for the past decade to develop an understanding and potential solutions to the communication deficiencies between sUAS operators, air traffic controllers, and air vehicles. These activities have paved the way for dramatic innovation to overcome the deficiencies in situation awareness of sUAS operators and air traffic controllers with regard to proximity operations of sUAS with each other, ground-based obstacles and potentially manned aircraft. This research has proposed system architectures based upon the needs of government and commercial entities. Simultaneously, the hobbyist community has also recognized this problem and began developing competitive technologies consistent with their perceived needs. These solutions vary along multiple dimensions, including safety, security, and cost. This paper will employ Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) to perform an architectural analysis of technologies related to the emerging solution set with the goal of uncovering a promising architecture solution for the future of UAS traffic management (UTM) which provides the potential for an integrated solution between these communities.