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Development and certification of a surrogate uav for test technique development and training at the national test pilot school

Lester A. Ingham, National Flight Test Institute Mojave CA, USA
Ryan Olson, National Flight Test Institute Mojave CA, USA

Abstract

While Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are slowly being accepted into civil air-space, the limits (i.e. the regulations and standards) are slowly being defined by organizations around the world. Once these limits are established, certification authorities will require flight tests to be executed in order to verify that UAS performance, handling qualities and systems will be able to operate safely within these limits. Without proper flight testing, UAS cannot be certificated. Although most traditional flight test techniques are still valid, new and inno-vative flight test methods need to be developed that will lower the costs and time spent on testing while still providing the necessary information to certification authorities.

The National Test Pilot School (NTPS) has developed a Surrogate UAS that can be used to research these techniques so that they can eventually be taught as part of the UAS course cur-riculum. Owing to current issues relating to the use of UAS in civil airspace, such as sense and avoid, it became clear that it would be necessary to modify an manned aircraft that could operate as a Surrogate UAS in an unmanned mode. It was therefore decided to convert a Cessna 150L into a Surrogate Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (SUAV). The SUAV will always have a licensed airplane pilot on-board who can deactivate the autopilot system at any mo-ment and revert to manual control. This configuration will also allow untrained students to operate the SUAV from the ground control station (GCS) under the close supervision of a qualified Ground Control Station Instructor (GCIS).

The Cessna 150L was modified to be remotely operated using the Cloud Cap Piccolo II auto-pilot. The Piccolo autopilot allows the system to be controlled via command directed (CD) mode or in a remotely piloted vehicle (RPV) mode. The Piccolo II autopilot obtains sensor information from an internal Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), Global Positioning System (GPS), completely independent Pitot-Static (PS) system, Above Ground Level (AGL) laser, Honeywell 2300 Magnetometer, RPM Hall Effect sensor, outside air temperature thermocou-ple (OAT), angle of attack and angle of sideslip vanes, and control surface deflection string potentiometers.

One of the challenges was the „chicken and egg‟ situation where the lack of defined limits (i.e. published regulations and standards) prevent the regular use of UAS in civilian airspace. Consequently, the development of this SUAV was one of the catalysts that assisted the FAA with developing and implementing new regulations which will be presented. The SUAV re-ceived its certification as an Optionally Piloted Aircraft (OPA) by the Federal Aviation Ad-ministration (FAA) in August of 2010 which allows NTPS to utilize the SUAV for research and flight test instruction within prescribed limitations.

Date: 
Tue, 2012-06-12