Human Interactions with Uncrewed Air Traffic Management
D. Janisch (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
M. Mulder – Promotor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
C. Borst – Promotor (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
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Abstract
The increasing demand for Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) will begin to strain the capacity of Air Traffic Control (ATC) in the coming years. In particular, the use of UAS to support urban delivery and infrastructure inspection missions poses the greatest opportunity for growth in the UAS sector, but also the highest risk to low-flying crewed aviation in the vicinity of towered aerodromes. Achieving a safe and orderly integration of UAS flights into existing controlled airspace structures will be crucial to prevent collisions between crewed and uncrewed aircraft. Yet, the path to achieve this is anything but straight forward. Recent disruptions and airspace closures caused by reported UAS sightings near major European airports have shown how little-prepared the current air traffic management ecosystem is to integrate UAS flights. Assuming that human Air Traffic Controllers (ATCOs) will not be able to manage the complexities of UAS missions, the aviation industry and regulators are considering the implementation of separate UAS Traffic Management (UTM) systems to guide and manage the flow of UAS and prevent collisions. Their reliance on high levels of automation and limited human intervention presents a challenge in an airspace requiring both Air Traffic Management (ATM) and UTM supervision, such as in the controlled traffic region around towered aerodromes.
The work in this thesis explored how an ecologically-inspired design of a collaborative ATC-UTM interface for tower controllers could assist them in supervising UTM decisions on UAS and achieve a safe and expeditious flow of air traffic within the control zone. The concept relies on the segregation of ATC and UTM areas of responsibility to avoid the issue of having multiple agents (human tower controller vs. automated UTM) manage different traffic in the same airspace. However, dynamic changes in crewed and uncrewed airspace demands may occur, making it necessary to provide flexible airspace management mechanisms. By using tools that automated UTM systems can interpret (geofences and UASspecific commands) human controllers can temporarily turn static airspace segregation into active separation management of individual vehicles to maintain safety...