Incorporating Terrain Avoidance into a Small UAS Sense and Avoid System

摘要

A terrain avoidance extension based primarily on the requirements of Terrain Awareness and Warning Systems (TAWS) using US Geological Survey data was recently integrated into an autonomous airborne sense and avoid system (ABSAA) at the University of North Dakota's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Engineering team (UASE). Given the native capabilities of a system using an Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) transceiver, a robust terrain avoidance component is an apt extension for ABSAA. This extension was successfully flight tested in August 2011, demonstrating the ability of the autonomous avoidance system to incorporate and balance additional environmental inputs and desired navigational objectives.