Validating a concept for airborne sense and avoid

Sense and avoid is the primary technical hurdle to unmanned aircraft system airspace integration. Several sense and avoid system concepts have been proposed, including numerous system architectures and technologies for aircraft surveillance, and threat detection and resolution. However, there is little evidence to support concept refinement, evaluation, requirements development, and validation. This paper introduces a methodology for evaluating, refining, and validating sense and avoid system concepts through flight testing tightly coupled to modeling and simulation safety analysis. This methodology is demonstrated through the analysis and flight testing of an airborne primary radar based sense and avoid system intended for the Department of Homeland Security Predator B variant, a medium altitude, long endurance unmanned aircraft system.