Collision Avoidance Strategies for Uncrewed Aircraft Systems in Structured Airspace Using a Roundabout Intersection

Abstract

The increasing size of the Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) ecosystem necessitates effective infrastructure and Collision Avoidance (CA) systems to facilitate high-density UAS traffic in urban environments. Unfortunately, current-generation Air Traffic Management (ATM) and CA systems used for crewed aircraft cannot be used with UAS due to scalability issues and operational constraints. This paper introduces a novel UAS intersection called the Roundabout, specifically designed for facilitating UAS traffic in structured airspace. This paper also proposes the methodology for a CA system based on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications, specifically UAS-to-UAS (U2U) communications, for Tactical Deconfliction (TD) between UAS in real-time. Simulation results demonstrate the system's efficacy in handling the deconfliction process between two quadrotor UAS and can be expected to generalize to deconfliction scenarios involving UAS of all types, given that the proper control systems and trajectory generation methods are available. Overall, these findings highlight the Roundabout's potential for enhancing UAS operations in the National Airspace System (NAS).