Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine November 2016 Tutorial X - 82


Tutorial

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2016.160116

Sense and Avoid for Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Giancarmine Fasano, Domenico Accardo, Antonio Moccia, University of Naples
"Federico II", Naples, Italy
David Maroney, The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, USA

Sense and avoid (SAA) represents one of the main roadblocks
to the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations by aviation authorities around the world. This tutorial
outlines and reviews the substantial breadth of SAA architectures, technologies, and algorithms. Starting from a discussion about what constitutes a UAS and how it is different than
manned aircraft, basic SAA definitions and taxonomies are
discussed. The SAA process is dissected into three fundamental tasks, defined as sensing, detecting, and avoiding, which are
discussed in detail. The tutorial concludes with a summary of
the regulatory and technical issues that continue to challenge
the progress on SAA, as a key component of reliable UAS operation in civil aviation authorities (CAAs) around the world.

I. INTRODUCTION
Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have been a growing topic in
the engineering community and the news, worldwide, over the
past 10 years. UAS are big business-there has existed a military
and defense need for UAS (large and small), and there is a rapidly
growing market for the commercial use of UAS. But the interest in,
and use of, unmanned systems is not new-the utility of an aircraft
that does not have a person onboard was conceived in World War
I with the "aerial torpedo" [1], and the history of the development
and use of unmanned systems is captured in several compendiums,
most notably Unmanned Aviation: A Brief History of Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles by Laurence R. Newcome [1].
However, with the recent surge in interest and technology,
there has been a greater focus on what makes UAS different than
manned air vehicles, and what will be required to permit them to
operate, integrated into airspace with other users. There are several
key requirements for enabling these operations, but the most troublesome one continues to be how to provide the UAS with a sense

Authors' addresses: G. Fasano, D. Accardo, A. Moccia, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Naples "Federico
II," P.le Tecchio 80, 80125 Naples, Italy; D. Maroney, Center for
Advanced Aviation System Development, The MITRE Corporation, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA 22102, USA. The corresponding author is G. Fasano at E-mail: g.fasano@unina.it.
Manuscript received May 16, 2016; revised August 17, 2016;
ready for publication September 19, 2016.
Review handled by W. Blair.
0885/8985/16/$26.00 © 2016 IEEE
82	

and avoid (SAA) capability, to replace the fundamental manned
aircraft capability of "see and avoid," as regulated by most countries and described in the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's
(FAA's) Code of Federal Regulation (14 CFR, Part 91.113) [2]. A
great deal of effort over the past decade has gone into the definition and aviation requirement for SAA, as the ability to adequately
sense and avoid other aircraft in the environment around the UAS
(and, depending on the environment, other obstacles such as terrain, buildings, trees, people, and birds).
This tutorial assembles and discusses the disparate definitions
of SAA and provides a status of the efforts to formalize these definitions into new or modified aviation requirements (or to coordinate them with existing requirements/regulations). For this tutorial,
we use the term unmanned aircraft system or UAS, although there
is a variety of terms used around the world, including unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV), remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), or popularly, "drone." Most of these terms refer to the airborne vehicle itself,
and it is an important distinction that the vehicle is part of a system
that is required to operate the vehicle like a manned aircraft-this is
further defined and discussed as part of the tutorial. Also for this
tutorial, we use the term sense and avoid or SAA, even though
there is a comparable diversity of terms, including detect and avoid
(DAA), and sense, detect, and avoid (SDA). These terms all refer
to the same set of processes, and are further defined below.
This tutorial begins with a discussion of what constitutes a
UAS, how it is different than manned aircraft, and what is required
to permit its safe operation, integrated into airspace with other
users. This frames the definition of SAA and how it is a key requirement for safe UAS operation. Details of the requirements for
SAA are discussed, and methods for filling those requirements are
outlined. The tutorial concludes with a discussion of the regulatory and technical issues that continue to challenge the progress of
SAA. This serves as an introduction to some of the current research
activities and experiences that have been covered within two recent special issues of AES Magazine.

A.  WHAT ARE UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS?
UAS is currently a rapidly developing field that utilizes some significant advances in several leading technologies, and challenges
some of the current regulatory and operational practices of major
aviation authorities around the world. This combination has earned
UAS the title of "new entrant" to aviation, along with new types
of aviation operation such as commercial space launches [3]. As a

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE	

NOVEMBER 2016, Part II of II



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