Certifying UAS Operators

More and more, unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are migrating from hobby drones and military intelligence gathering machines to the commercial sector, where they are being used for commercial photography, surveys, and various other tasks best accomplished from the air. Most commercial UASs are of the "small" variety (less than fifty-five pounds), but that will more than likely change in the future as large unmanned craft take to the sky to transport both humans and cargo. 

As UAS operations become more commercial, the selection and training of the crew that fly them will become more stringent. Here is how I would hire and train drone pilots for my imaginary company. 

Selection, Training, Certification

The best way to select someone for a job is to hire a person who already has experience working that job. Ex-military UAS pilots and pro civilian drone pilots would be my first-round draft picks. I'd also happily hire manned craft pilots since they know their way around controlled airspace. Barring all that, I would interview hobby drone pilots who were serious about their craft and had the flight time to prove it. 

If none of that was available, I would hire based on a standardized aptitude test, similar to the written flight test given to military flight applicants. Education is fine, but I need someone who demonstrates the ability to do the job. 

Training would come next and would come in the form of a simulator. A UAS control module is basically a screen (or multiple screens), sensor readouts, and flight controls. That is easily replicated. I would have my prospective pilots log at least fifty hours in the simulator before they tested for certification. I think that is the minimum amount of hours required to safely fly a UAS in the NAS, and it would be an easy number to hit in a simulator. 

Certification would come via an exam of a real flight. Fly the actual drone in controlled airspace and execute several simulated scenarios and emergencies. Pass, and you can go for your drone license. Fail and it's back to the simulator (or back to the street if you don't have the right aptitude). 

One important thing to keep in mind: the bigger the drone, the more crewmembers it will need, and the more the pilots will have to train. Flying a quadcopter drone within visual line of sight to do a construction survey is one thing. Flying a fixed-wing drone beyond line of sight in controlled airspace is quite another. If I were to utilize large drones in my business, and have them be flown beyond line of sight, I would require pilots to get one hundred simulator hours to fly them. At that point, you're flying a plane in busy airspace. Your training and skills should be absolutely top notch as the safety of everyone flying in the same space as the drone depends on it. 

UAS Mishaps and Accidents: Human Error in Unmanned Craft

 Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) are often thought of in the public as soulless machines, free of human interference. However, the reality is quite different. Just because there is no pilot physically in the cockpit, doesn't mean that human error doesn't play a factor in UAS flight. The fact is, UASs crash a lot - a lot - and when they do, the pilot is often to blame. 

Hazards and Risks in Aviation Operations 

UASs and crewed craft share the same hazards and risks when it comes to flight. Terrain, weather, payload, performance capabilities of the craft, experience levels of the pilot and crew, and countless other variables come into play in safe flight. The difference is, manned craft pilots and crew have a long history of pre-flight checklists, thorough maintenance, and countless other checks and balances designed to remove those variables and minimize risk as much as possible. Most UAS pilots (outside of the military) do not. It is this lack of thoroughness, especially on the part of recreational UAS pilots, that leads to numerous UAS accidents. 

BVLOS Operations - Worth the Risk? 

BVLOS stands for "beyond visual line of sight". It's a fancy way of saying "the drone is flying farther than the pilot can see with the naked eye". Military drone pilots have done this for decades, but now civilians are starting to get in on the action. 

BVLOS is risky. When you fly BVLOS, you lose a huge chunk of your spatial and situational awareness. You can no longer see the drone and everything around it; instead, you must rely on a video feed from the drone to understand what is happening. 

This can be incredibly disorienting for first-time BVLOS pilots. Being able to see only a small chunk of the area in front of the drone means you have to fly slower and be much more aware of what the info is telling you. You're also forced to rely much more on the drone's fail safes. Those fail safes are collision avoidance and loss link return. 

A drone equipped with collision avoidance can sense obstacles in its path - much like a modern car - and slow down, stop, or change direction if necessary. This is the safety net drone pilots need if they are to fly BVLOS safely. 

Loss link returns the drone to its origin point if it loses contact with its ground control station (GCS). Without this capability, an un-linked drone becomes a flying obstacle and collision hazard until its battery runs out and it comes crashing down to earth. 

Human Factors and UAS Mishap Rates

Human factors have been a large contributing factor to UAS accidents. In fact, a close study of UAS accident reports shows that human factors are the main cause of UAS accidents and mishaps. These reports are full of tales of pilots flying their drones into occupied airspace, or flying them into stationary obstacles, or flying them directly into the ocean. It's shocking in a way because most of these accidents are preventable, and yet they still happen. 

Personally, I think these accidents happen because civilian drone pilots do not think of themselves as "real" pilots in the way that military drone pilots do. The prevailing attitude seems to be that they think they're flying an upscaled remote controlled car instead of a flying vehicle that has the potential to become a lethal missile. That needs to change, and quickly. As more and more drones enter the airspace, their pilots will have to take their jobs a lot more seriously in order to maintain safe operation with these craft. 

Automation in the Cockpit: How Much is Too Much?

 There are several different levels of automation in UAS (unmanned aerial system) flight. The most common way to break them down is as follows: 

Level 0: Human operated. Pilot controls everything. 

Level 1: Human directed. Pilot gives orders, UAS follows. 

Level 2: Human delegated. Pilot gives general inputs; UAS handles the smaller tasks required by those inputs. 

Level 3: Human supervised. UAS makes most of the decisions. Pilot watches to make sure nothing goes wrong. 

Level 4: Full automation. The science fiction ideal. The UAS does everything with no human supervision necessary. 

Manned aircraft go through the same levels. Modern airliners are far more automated than most people realize. Pilots in interviews often lament that they barely touch the aircraft when they fly. Modern airliners spend a lot of time at level 3, where the airplane does most of the work and the pilots make sure nothing goes wrong. 

There are definitely different considerations between crewed and UAS flights because the pilot is not in the cockpit of a UAS. There's less situational awareness and a greater need for human engagement. It's a bit ironic that unmanned systems are looked at as the future of automation when they require more hands-on engagement than their crewed counterparts. 

However, all this automation is less than ideal. Manual flying is a perishable skill, and modern pilots don't get enough practice with it. A modern pilot is far more of a software manager than he or she is the swashbuckling air captain of yesteryear. This isn't a problem most of the time, but can become a huge issue when the plane hits an emergency that automation can't handle. 

In an emergency (like the landing of flight 1549 into the Hudson River), a pilot has precious little time to make decisions and must rely on skill and experience to handle the emergency. Split-second reactions and decisions are needed. Captain Sully was able to successfully land the plane because he had decades of pre-automation experience. I wonder if young modern pilots, who spend most of their time managing computers, can do the same thing. 

NyQuil and Drones Don't Mix

 Everyone gets sick. Everyone gets colds. Everyone takes medicine that helps relieve the pain and symptoms of the cold and flu and makes them a little drowsy in return. 

But not everyone flies drones. 

Over-the-counter (OTC) medications pose a real risk to UAS pilots. They're easily accessed and commonly used; their effects are typically mild. However, the Benadryl that you take safely in your living room can become a dangerous drug when you take the controls of your drone. 

This is one thing that all UAS operators must remember: a drone isn't a toy, even if that is how they are marketed. Once you're flying a drone that weighs several pounds and is flying fifty feet or higher in the air, you are in control of a projectile that can become lethal if it crashes into something (or someone) or plummets out of the sky. 

UAS pilots have a responsibility to mitigate risk when they fly. From a human factors perspective, that means being well-rested, relatively healthy, and of sound mind. Yes, just like the "real" pilots who fly manned craft. When you are in control of an aerial vehicle, you are a pilot, regardless of whether or not you are sitting in the cockpit. 

Fatigue degrades decision making and reaction time. Stress does the same. The first is a physiological effect. The second is a distractive effect. The net result is the same: riskier operation. 

The moral of the story: if you're impaired to the point where you can't safely operate a manned aircraft, you're impaired to the point where you can't fly a drone, either. Get some sleep, clear your head, and stay away from the drowsy medications. The quadcopter will be there tomorrow. 

Flying Drones and Managing Risks

 ADM is a key acronym in both manned an unmanned flight. It stands for "aeronautical decision making", and it covers everything from the flight plan and fuel load to decisions made while in flight. 

Risk management is exactly what it sounds like: an assessment of risk, and then actions taken to mitigate that risk. 

Those of us in the military are intimately familiar with risk management. Everything we do is based around it. Qualification ranges, road marches, motorized movement...anything which poses a risk is scrutinized and analyzed, and then controls are developed to mitigate that risk. The end result is prevented injuries and saved lives. 

I wasn't familiar with the concept of ADM until very recently, but it makes sense. It is a systematic approach to flight and the challenges that come with it. ADM and risk management are the same thing in many ways. ADM is a systematic approach to flight that maximizes efficiency while reducing risk as much as possible. 

UAS pilots face an interesting challenge when it comes to both ADM and risk management. On the ADM side, UAS pilots need to be well-versed in the laws of the place where they intend to operate their drones. Failing to understand the law may lead to tickets and citations. Pilots of manned craft have no such concerns. 

On the risk management side, UAS pilots need to account for terrain, weather, and other factors typical for manned craft pilots. They also have to account for sensor range and lost link fail safes, something that does not concern manned pilots. They also need to be highly aware of the concentrations of people in the areas they choose to fly. Even if it is legal to fly above groups of people in a particular area (it isn't always legal, drone pilots - check your local laws!), a crashing drone can still hurt someone, and the pilot will still be liable. 

There are human factors at play affecting licensed UAS pilots that I never would have considered until recently. The biggest is the way people themselves see drones. Many people look at drones as toys, nuisances, or invasions of privacy, which in turn leads local lawmakers to issue laws restricting their operation. Manned pilots only need to worry about FAA regulations. UAS pilots have to learn local laws an ordinances as well. 

The moral of the story: if you want to fly a drone, get licensed. And then, become very familiar with the laws where you intend to fly the machine. 

And then, do what all good pilots do: have a good ADM system in place, and always practice risk management. 

Flying Cars, Finally

 Since the beginnings of science fiction and the automotive revolution, we've been promised flying cars. They've been a staple of everything from movies like Blade Runner and The Sixth Element to video games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Cloudpunk. And that's where they've mostly stayed: in the realm of fiction. 

But some manufacturers are trying to change that. 

Urban Air Mobility 

This is the Airbus NextGen, an Urban Air Mobility (UAM) vehicle that is still in the concept stage. 

It looks more like a tiny airplane than a flying car, but Airbus hopes that this is the future of transport. This fixed-wing, eight (yes, eight) propeller four-seater is an electric VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) craft designed for maximum stability and maneuverability in close quarters. This may be where the future of urban transport is going. 

But there are many obstacles in the way. 

Close Quarters Flight

Those obstacles are literally buildings. The flying cars in movies and video games work well because special effects don't have to account for the laws of physics and the behavior of craft in turbulent air. They don't have to account for the differences of the effects of rotor wash when near a building and when in open space. The flying cars in movies magically float on rails and jets. The flying cars we're trying to build utilize propellers that create all kinds of turbulence. It takes a special kind of pilot to be able to handle all these variables. 

Which may lead to the pilots not being human. 

UAS - The UAM Answer? 

UAS stands for "unmanned aerial system", and it may be the answer to the urban air mobility issue. Asking a human pilot to account for air dynamics, tight flight corridors, other vehicles, and buildings everywhere is a lot and may be overwhelming. However, asking an AI to handle these myriad variables may not be too much. Current commercial airplanes mostly fly themselves, with electronic brains handling a bulk of what human pilots were once asked to do. Perhaps the same principle can be applied to UAMs, in order to make low-altitude city flight safer. 

A Question of Control 

The problem is, there will be more than one UAM vehicle in the sky. If UAMs take off the way Airbus and other companies hope it does, then the sky will be filled with UAMs, many of them autonomous. How do we keep them from crashing into each other? 

The answer - maybe - is UTM, or unmanned aircraft systems traffic management. This system, currently still in an embryonic stage, is a "traffic management ecosystem" designed to control UAS traffic in much the same way that human controllers in control towers manage human-piloted aircraft. If UAMs are to be effective, a system like this would have to be in place. A good UTM would keep the UASs in their own lanes and out of the ways of each other and of human-piloted craft. No such system exists yet as there is no need for it; but if a viable unmanned UAM enters the market, that will quickly change. 

Welcome to the NAS

The NAS is the national aerospace system. According to FAA.gov, it is "...a network of both controlled and uncontrolled airspace, both domestic and oceanic". It is to aircraft what the national road system is to ground based traffic. And, at some point, it will have to integrate UASs. 

This poses a challenge on many fronts. Which UASs should be regulated? All of them, or just the bigger ones? And how will control be imposed? Can a human air traffic controller command and direct an AI-controlled craft? Commercial UASs are little more than toys now, but that may change significantly in the future, especially if some UASs become used for human transport. 

The FAA Next Gen Initiative 

Airbus isn't the only organization with a "next gen" project. The FAA has its own Next Gen initiative, which it says will cost billions and be a complete overhaul of the NAS. New towers, new runways, new ways of doing things. And with it, perhaps a new recognition of the role UASs will play in the nation's aviation future. 

To be clear, the front page of the FAA's Next Gen site (https://www.faa.gov/nextgen) doesn't mention UASs, but the FAA can't ignore this fast-rising component of aviation vehicles. Integration of unmanned craft will have to take place. The UTM mentioned two paragraphs before will be crucial in UASs playing nice alongside their manned counterparts. 

DSA - A Critical Safety Measure 

DSA stands for detect, sense, and avoid. It's the aviation version of the sensors present in most new cars today, which sense nearby vehicles and take action on their own to avoid and prevent collisions. 

DSA technology is critical for UASs to be integrated into the NAS. The biggest fear many people have of UAS flight is collisions. A collision in an urban environment could be especially dangerous, because it would hurt not only the people in the crafts but anyone standing below them. A strong, effective, well-developed DSA system is key to preventing such tragedies. 

Loss Link - The Ultimate Nightmare 

DSA becomes crucial when you consider the biggest nightmare scenario: a large UAS losing its tether to its home station and flying blind as a result, potentially causing a devastating accident. 

At that point, once the connection is lost, the DSA proves its worth by avoiding collisions, locating a safe landing spot, and lowering the craft to the ground. 

It will take several demonstrations of this safety feature for UASs to be accepted into mainstream traffic, and it will come at the expense of lots of frightened (but hopefully unharmed) people. No one wants to be in a UAS that loses its link, but their survival will be the key to more people being willing to risk travel on a UAS. 

The Human Factor 

Despite all the talk of automation, humans are still the most important part of this equation, especially when it comes to the loss link. 

The last thing UAS operators can do when their craft loses its link is sit back, do nothing, and assume the computer will handle everything. Artificial intelligence is pretty good, but not so good that it can replace a human pilot. In a loss link, the pilots will have to scramble to reconnect the craft to their control system. On the ground, people's reaction to an out-of-control UAS will go a long way towards determining how many people get hurt during a loss link event and why. 

In other words, the ultimate safety of UAS passengers, the ultimate integration of UAS into the NAS, and the ultimate success of the NextGen program all reside with the people who tirelessly work on them. UASs may be machines, but the puppet masters who pull their strings are most assuredly human. 

The Lost Hiker

 The mission: find a missing hiker in Yosemite National Park. 

The UAS (unmanned aerial system): a custom-assembled rotary craft designed for long range flight. 

The result: fire located, wildlife spotted, but hiker still missing. 

Let's get into the details. 

This week's ERAU assignment required us to build and launch a UAS in a simple but interesting simulator. There were three missions available, one of which was to find a missing hiker. I picked that one as it had the clearest objective, and built a UAS suitable for the task. 

For the task, I selected the Gannet helicopter, a fictitious chassis based on real-world models: 

The Gannet is a big bird with a four-stroke gas engine and the ability to carry a relatively heavy payload. I used that payload to equip it with a high-resolution camera, dipole antenna for extra control range, and as much fuel as it could carry. I used the GCS (ground control system) trailer to control the craft, as it had the longest range and most electronic capability. The focus of the mission was longevity and range. I wanted to fly as long as possible and as far as possible in search of the missing hiker. 

Alas, I came up empty. Looking for a lone hiker in that large swath of land was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack. I flew to the site of a fire, thinking the hiker had started it to signal rescuers, but when I got there, I saw nothing except a deer and a bear. On a second run, I searched the river bank, thinking the hiker may have gone there to replenish his water supply, but still nothing. I'll go back a third time, though. I want to finish the mission. 

One thing was clear, however: the Gannet was absolutely up to the task of looking for the hiker. I saved the configuration to use on similar missions later. 

 

Unmanned Systems: A Very Human Problem

 What do you think of when you think of unmanned systems?

Do you think of a Roomba, carefully vacuuming while its master is out of the house?

Do you think of Alexa, the Amazon-powered speaker that tells bad jokes and helps you build shopping lists?

Do you think of Tesla cars, driving themselves on public roads?

Or do you think of Predator drones, spying on enemy fighters in foreign lands?

There’s a good chance that you thought of all these things. And there’s also a good chance that your mind went straight to the technological aspect of these devices, and completely bypassed the human element. That’s normal; humans have always been fascinated with technology.

However, to truly understand these systems, we need to understand the human factor. We need to understand the people who make these machines, who operate these machines, and who are affected by these machines.

Unmanned systems are becoming more commonplace every day. Camera drones are a common sight at NFL games. Online retailers continue to test self-propelled delivery devices. Chatbots hold conversations through an ever-evolving understanding of language. Our world is becoming more and more automated.

However, these systems are not created in a vacuum. They are created by human beings, and so carry the imperfections of their creators. They interact and behave in unexpected ways. Sometimes, they fall short of their intended goals. At other times, they far exceed the imaginations of their creators.

And they all leave an indelible imprint on the end user, a reminder that technology is always moving forward.

The goal of this blog is to bring those human factors to light and to help close the gap between human and machine. Unmanned systems are here to stay. It benefits us all to help understand how to interact and share space with these ever-evolving machines.