UAS flight test for safety and for efficiency

Details

• Creators:
  McGovern, Seamus M.
• Corporate Creators:
  John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Aircraft Certification Drone Aircraft Flight Tests Remotely Piloted Aircraft Test Procedures
• Resource Type:
  Research Paper
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• NTL Classification:
  NTL-AVIATION-AVIATION ; NTL-AVIATION-Aviation Safety/Airworthiness
• Abstract:
  Manned aircraft that operate in the National Airspace System (NAS) typically undergo certification flight test to ensure they meet a prescribed level of safety—dependent on their category—before they are able to enter service [for example, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) advisory circular (AC) 25-7C is the flight-test guide for certification of transport-category airplanes]. With the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the NAS, in the future some type of certification flight test may ultimately be required, however, even lacking such a requirement UAS manufacturers can find value in flight testing UASs using familiar experimental and certification flight- test procedures, the results of which can enhance the safety of the design, the safety of the operation, and/or the efficiency of the operation. In this paper, selected applications of flight-test procedures to the development and operation of UASs are demonstrated using a rotorcraft UAS (a multirotor) and a surrogate for a fixed-wing UAS. The limited, selected flight tests shown here reveal areas for design improvements to potentially enhance safety, provide insights into UAS and manned-aircraft equipage differences, enable potentially safer operational flight profiles, and facilitate more- efficient flight regimes (e.g., optimal flight profiles to maximize a UAS’s flight time). These sample studies show promise for the use of conventional flight-test techniques in the design of UAS flight procedures and in the design of the UAS itself.
• Format:
  PDF
• Collection(s):
  Volpe Center
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:ea104dafae03c4f75f00e41e3450c886f22216c0bb69d165c61f1c3370d3628c
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/12466/dot_12466_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 264.76 KB ]