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1-Sm EVTOL 2019 UAM-Jacobson

This document discusses enabling urban air mobility (UAM) and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) operations. It envisions starting with assisted human pilots and gradually transitioning to fully autonomous operations without human pilots. The transition would involve evolving the human's role from pilot to operator to supervisor to dispatcher with less direct involvement over time. The company discussed provides automation and autonomy technologies to support UAM and optionally piloted vehicles, including flight management, envelope protection, connectivity, backup systems, sensor fusion, guidance systems, and software to assist human pilots. Certification in the national airspace is also addressed through incremental certification approaches.

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Oliver Raila
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48 views7 pages

1-Sm EVTOL 2019 UAM-Jacobson

This document discusses enabling urban air mobility (UAM) and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) operations. It envisions starting with assisted human pilots and gradually transitioning to fully autonomous operations without human pilots. The transition would involve evolving the human's role from pilot to operator to supervisor to dispatcher with less direct involvement over time. The company discussed provides automation and autonomy technologies to support UAM and optionally piloted vehicles, including flight management, envelope protection, connectivity, backup systems, sensor fusion, guidance systems, and software to assist human pilots. Certification in the national airspace is also addressed through incremental certification approaches.

Uploaded by

Oliver Raila
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Enabling Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

and eVTOL Operations

Steve Jacobson | CEO


Envisioned Urban Air Mobility CONOPS
New airframes are designed with the end-goal of no direct human piloting or control in mind from the start.

Realistically, this means most will likely start out with a human “flying” the airplane with a great deal of automation
assistance from software. In this case, the system is using autonomy in many areas but the on-board human pilot is
performing a lot of the perception and planning tasks and is actively involved with handling any emergency or
anomalous conditions that arise.

But as soon as we can, we start to pull the human “pilot” out of the loop. This can be accomplished by:
• Using a human “operator” on a Ground Control Station over a C2 link (1:1), then;
• Evolve to a human “supervisor” on a Ground Control Station over the C2 link (1:1), then;
• Move to a human “dispatcher” monitoring multiple flights on Ground Control Station (1:Many), and;
• Possibly end up with little to no human monitoring (but that’s a long way down the road, if ever).

In the meantime, we start with using software to assist a conventional pilot, and we are datalogging everything in the
expectation that the ensuing database of performance can be used as part of a field service history certification input.
We are in active discussions with the FAA on what it means to “certify” a control station and are active in industry
working groups to facilitate unrestricted flight in the National Airspace System for unmanned, or non-traditionally
piloted aircraft.

3
Our Contribution to UAM & OPV
A myriad of automation and autonomy technology and subsystems are required to permit success in Urban Air
Mobility (UAM) and Optionally Piloted Vehicles (OPV). We have, or are working on:

4D Flight Management Full Envelope Protection Total Connectivity


Auto generate route – user doesn’t need User nor environment can not push Aircraft always connected to the
expertise to define proper route vehicle out of safe flight envelope internet with encrypted key

Backup Monitors Sensor Fusion Control Station


Includes extensive datalogging and on- Camera assist for landing and All airborne data presented in near
demand maintenance alerts unique landing pad marking – real-time cockpit-like presentation
including wearable HUDs

Terminal Guidance Detect and Avoid Graceful Degradation


Create depiction and guidance Predictable behavior during
Optical solution, ACAS-X,
commands for 3D urban anomalous conditions
Lightweight radar, TAWS, PGCAS
departure and approach verti-
port corridors
More on Software Assistance
In order to achieve the “S” in SVO and instill the perceived and actual extreme level of
safety required, our approach is to integrate the following capabilities:
• Envelope Protection – the goal is to have an on-board autopilot that ensures there is
nothing you the human, or the aircraft, or the environment can do to push the airframe
out of its safety envelope;
• “Just Keep it in the Green” – related to Envelope Protection, the human
pilot/operator/supervisor shouldn’t have to spend the time and energy to fly a specific
airspeed or heading or altitude or power setting;
• Autonomous Routing and Re-routing Capability – here the system is informed of the
final destination (usually via human interaction), knows its current position, and either
senses or is informed (usually via onboard databases and/or external datalink) of
“threats” to its path and autonomously computes a path;
• Armed Autonomy with Recall – for any feature that has the ability to perform an
autonomous behavior (like the autonomous re-routing), the system has an optional user
option where autonomy can be “armed”;
• Semi-autonomous Checklist Running – for those steps that can not be automatically
executed, clear indications to the human operator/supervisor that manual intervention
is required need to be provided. Failure to complete appropriate checklists will be
emphatically presented to the human operator/supervisor;
• Certified Avionics Safety Net – even if the displays that the human
pilot/operator/supervisor are using are dramatically simplified and content reduced, if
the displays crump out, the “real” avionics behind the panel (e.g. residing on the
Mission Computer) are still doing the right thing;
• “On-star” VOIP Button – a physical button that on-board occupants can press that
allows for direct communication over a VPN or VPN-like connection

5
Certification in the National Airspace System
• Early and frequent communication with the FAA certification authorities
• Drawing on our 20+ year history of certifying advanced avionics in traditional manned flight
• Use of hardware and software partitioning
• Emphasis on Run-Time Assurance and Monitoring techniques such as kinematic comparators
• Fail-functional – no human backup required
• Extensive data logging for post anomaly analysis and corrective action

• Designs that support both “Micro STCs” in our Cessna 182 and Cirrus SR22 – frequent & incremental
certifications using more and more automation (logical and approvable baby steps)
• Start with existing in-cockpit iPad app fully interactive with certified panel avionics
• Then tablet is outside of aircraft and used for enroute operations
• Then add servos to throttle, mixture, brakes
• Etc

And
• Fully autonomous systems with operational constraints that are gradually reduced over time.
• Pre-defined routes only
• Pre-defined contingency behaviors
• Autopilot is always on and has no mode control panel
• Deterministic loss-link behavior
• Etc
OPV Projects
• We have converted company C-182 to an
Optionally Piloted Vehicle (OPV)  use as a test
bed for Control Station and Autonomy software
development.

• Partner company converting Velocity, Lancair,


and L-39s to OPV with our Mission Computer,
Autopilot, and Control Station for autonomy
software development. First aircraft (Cessna
421) converted in Jan ’18.

• Partner company will be converting Cirrus SR22


to OPV and Virtual Co-Pilot with our Mission
Computer, Autopilot, and Control Station for
Wide-area Surveillance (started Sep 2018).

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