Quantifying situation awareness for small unmanned aircraft Towards routine Beyond Visual Line Of Sight operations

摘要

A novel statistical model is presented to quantify situation awareness in the operation of small\udcivilian Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). Today, the vast majority of small UAS operation\udtakes place under Visual Line Of Sight (VLOS) of a human operator, who is wholly\udresponsible for the safety of the flight. As operation begins to move to Beyond Visual Line\udOf Sight (BVLOS), it is likely that this responsibility will become shared between operator\udand the increasingly autonomous UAS itself. Before we seek to quantify the safety of such a\udsystem, it is beneficial to analyse the safety of existing VLOS operations to provide a target\udlevel of safety. Prior to considering any on-board decision making, it is essential to ensure that\udthe artificial situation awareness system of a UAS in BVLOS is at least as good as awareness\udof a human operator. The paper provides a probabilistic theory and model for the high level\udabstractions of situation awareness to guide future assessment of BVLOS operations.\ud