Safety assessment of unmanned aerial vehicle operations in an integrated airspace

This paper focuses on the safety assessment of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operating in an integrated airspace system. The assessment is based on series of Monte Carlo Simulations to include the effect of the variety of Conflict Detection and Resolution (CD&R) systems in each involved vehicle. The difficulty of using Monte Carlo simulations in the assessment, in which collision are rare to be sufficiently represented, is overcome by the use of a high density airspace with a periodic boundary condition. This setup, along with the randomization of the UAV states and the CD&R parameters, increases the number of conflicts and resolutions for each Monte Carlo sample to rapidly reach convergence. The parameters derived, including the mean ratio of time in which the vehicle are in either mission mode, avoidance mode, or in a Near Mid Air Collision (NMAC) situation, are compared to similar Monte Carlo simulation results where no CD&R system is used. The proposed method is a versatile safety assessment method for various encounter situations a UAV an its CD&R system might face in its operation in an integrated airspace system.