Integrated Air Traffic Simulations of Manned and Remotely Piloted Aircraft

With the rapid growth of technologies and demand of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs), integration of such systems into the existing airspace is becoming an issue in many countries. To assess the impact of integrated operations of manned and remotely piloted aircraft (RPA), it is necessary to perform Human-in-The-Loop (HiTL) simulations of likely situations with an integrated simulation system. This paper defines several operational concepts for the integrated simulation. Several probable scenarios were developed including a traffic pattern at a small airport and an altitude maneuver at a route crossing. HiTL simulations were performed according to the developed scenarios. The simulation results are analyzed focusing on the impacts of different communication, safety, performance, and human machine interface (HMI) characteristics of RPA.