How to stay well clear in corridors and swarms: Detect-and-avoid ranges for geovectoring concepts

Abstract

With a growing interest in urban air mobility concepts and unmanned aircraft in general the potential number of several unmanned aircraft sharing the same airspace also increases. Constraining the velocity and direction of vehicles in close proximity is known to reduce the probability of conflicts or even collisions by decreasing the relative velocities of nearby vehicles. This concept is well known from automobile highways, and it forms the basis of concepts like air corridors, air tubes, and, in general, geovectoring. Similar principles apply to the coordination of vehicles flying in a swarm. By constraining and synchronizing velocity and direction the likelihood of a collision is reduced even at higher absolute velocities.Both, geovectoring and swarm coordination, may require a detect-and-avoid solution to become aware of potential conflicts by monitoring the distances and speeds of nearby vehicles. Even in case of a swarm flight using a perfect navigation solution, where in theory no active detect-and-avoid system is necessary, minimal distances have to be known in advance in order to plan the manoeuvres accordingly.We present a method to calculate minimal detection ranges for unmanned aerial applications with constrained velocity vectors. The method is based on parallel simulations considering the individual performance parameters of involved vehicles. Results can be used to formulate requirements for operational concepts, airspace structuring, as well as, technical solutions for detect-and-avoid.