Control of IFR RPAS in the TMA

Date de clôture : 10 sept. 2019  
APPEL À PROJET CLÔTURÉ

Even though the remote pilot of an IFR RPAS may be located anywhere in the world, control from a ground station that is not in direct radio line-of-sight will generally increase communication latency, which may require ATC to apply extended separation buffers for RPAS, especially during approach, take-off and landing, where ATC is more dynamic, or it may even render TMA operations impossible. The challenge is to integrate IFR RPAS in the busy TMA and airport environments, beyond the level that is currently being research in the industrial research programme.

The industrial research programme is researching the accommodation and integration of IFR RPAS in the airspace and at the airport, with a focus on accommodation and integration of the demand expected in the 2025-2035 time-frame. Research being conducted in Wave 1 by PJ.10-05 and the awarded scope of work in Wave 2 are expected to be publicly available at the end of 2019. This comprises almost exclusively IFR RPAS that operate from either military bases or dedicated airfields, where the remote pilot can control the aircraft via a radio line-of-sight C2 link. For take-off and landing, it is expected that large separation buffers may be required. The research that will be carried out in this exploratory research topic will pave the way for IFR RPAS to be able to fly to and from any airport in full integration with manned aircraft, i.e. eliminating or greatly reducing the separation buffers.

The aim of the research is to establish high-level requirements to allow the control of IFR RPAS for flight in the TMA, take-off and landing to allow enough flexibility for the IFR RPAS to safely operate in busy environments, even if some separation buffers above those applicable for manned aircraft are applied. The research must include the consideration of all the instructions that are usually issued by ATC in a busy airport (considering in particular take-off and landing clearances) and TMA environment (e.g. headings, speed control, approach take-off and landing clearances, stop-take-off instruction after take-off roll has been initiated, missed approach clearances, late go-around clearances, etc.).

C2 latency is always a key consideration for the integration of IFR RPAS in any airspace, because it has an impact on how quickly an ATC instruction can be implemented. In order to get low-latency control during take-off and landing, the traditional split operations concept requires the command and control for take-off and landing to be carried out by a local flight-crew using a line-of-sight C2 link. This system poses limitations to where the IFR can fly (a flight-crew and their supporting infrastructure must be line-of-sight from the departure and destination airports). The research could explore the possibility of establishing a C2 gateway at the airport to enable that the C2 communications be routed from a pilot located anywhere in the world via ground-ground communications into the airport RPAS C2 gateway, from which they would be routed through a line-of-sight radio link. This will enable the control of the aircraft from take-off at one airport to landing at another airport from a single ground control station, while enjoying line-of-sight C2 at both ends.

The research may also research the impact of RPAS using automatic take-off and/or landing systems, i.e. which added buffers may be needed for IFR RPAS that are untethered (no human-in-the-loop) during routine take-off and landing, but where a human may be available to intervene in non-nominal cases.

Research into DAA and RWC is out of the scope for this topic.

The output of this project must include the high-level operational requirements to support the operation of IFR RPAS in the (busy) TMA environment in integration with manned aircraft, and include performance quantification and a proposed technical architecture.

Consortia bidding for this topic must have both technical RPAS C2 expertise, operational RPAS expertise and air traffic control expertise. The research may include mock-up simulations/demonstrations involving controllers and remote pilots.

It is expected that the research in this topic paves the way for the integration of IFR RPAS with manned aviation in the TMA and tower environment beyond what is currently being research in the industrial research programme.