OEM Perspective on UAV Trends, Challenges

摘要

GPS World (GPSW): In the regulatory picture for unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs), what are the concerns for the GNSS research, design, and manufacturing community regarding air-space regulation? Graham Purves (GP): The main concern is the scope and impact of certification requirements for UAV navigation systems in the National Air Space. Certification places constraints on software complexity, so it is difficult to define solutions if the certification framework is unclear. In the context of current avionics for civil aviation, design standards and certification requirements are well defined. In the case of pilot-less aircraft, the navigation systems may make use of additional features and technologies that are not part of the current certification paradigm. Examples are tightly coupled inertial navigation systems (INS) for flight control and redundancy, and realtime kinematic (RTK) and differential GPS for landing and capture. Certification requirements and design assurance levels for these features will have a major impact on the definition and design process, and may even prevent some effective technical solutions from being used, due to the software complexity. Of course, communications and communication standards will also present a significant hurdle.