Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine September 2016 - 3

From the Editor-in-Chief
SEPTEMBER 2016

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2016.169001

Maria Greco

ere it comes, September, time for new plans. In August you received an e-mail announcing the new
online version of the Magazine offered, as well as the print version, to AESS members. Actually, until
the end of the year the online version of the Magazine is offered free to the public. In 2017, this offering will be a benefit of AESS membership.
The online version has not been created to replace the print version, because we know that many of you like
to have the paper version to read and to bring everywhere. But, sometimes, it's easier and faster to browse the online version on a laptop or tablet. That's why we have decided to offer the online version of the Magazine as well.
The idea for the future is not to have an exact replica of the print version. The content will be the same,
but on the online version we can add new features associated to the papers, like videos, active links and so
on. If you have suggestions or simply comments, please contact me or our administrative editor William
Walsh (w.walsh@ieee.org). All ideas, proposals, and feedback are welcome.
Now I leave my space to the guest editorial of the special issue on Sense & Avoid, Part II.
Enjoy reading and ciao.
Maria Sabrina Greco

From the Editors of the Special Issue:
Sense and Avoid for Unmanned Systems: Part II

DOI. No. 10.1109/MAES.2016.169002

Giancarmine Fasano, David R. Maroney

n this issue, we continue our two-part examination of Sense and
Avoid (SAA) research for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) that
was begun in July 2016 issue of the Aerospace and Electrical Systems (AES) Magazine. As we noted, much of the research focuses
on what makes UAS different than manned aircraft, 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
and avoid" capability, to replace
the fundamental manned aircraft
capability to "see and avoid", as
regulated by most countries and
described in the U.S. FAA's Code
of Federal Regulation (14 CFR,
Part 91.113). A great deal of efGiancarmine Fasano
fort over the past decade has gone
SEPTEMBER 2016

into defining what SAA is, and what the aviation requirements are,
for being able to adequately sense and avoid other aircraft in the
environment around the UAS.
The definition and description of SAA and its several dimensions are the topic of a tutorial that will be published in the AES
Magazine in 2016. In brief, it
describes SAA as a variable requirement based on whether the
UAS is a large one flying in controlled airspace, or a small one
flying at low altitudes in largely
uncontrolled airspace. This requirement can be met with a
variety of sensors that can be described as cooperative (sharing
location information with other
aircraft) or non-cooperative, with
the latter involving sensors that
are either active (such as radar)
David R. Maroney
or passive (such as cameras).

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine September 2016