Extending safety assessment methods for remotely piloted aircraft operations in the national airspace system

Abstract

Remotely Piloted Aircraft operations are growing rapidly in the United States specifically for the Department of Defense to achieve training needs. To ensure the safety of the National Airspace System is maintained to a high standard, Remotely Piloted Aircraft operations are being assessed on a case by case basis by the Federal Aviation Administration for approval of a Certificate of Authorization. FAA guidance currently requires the use of human observers to ensure safe separation of RPA operations from other aircraft. The United States Air Force intends to use technology to replace the human observers, but a safety assessment must be conducted for approval of any such technology. The objective of this thesis is to examine the process and results of traditional safety assessment methods used by the United States Air Force as well as apply the same information as a case study to an innovative method called the influence matrix framework. The influence matrix framework will be analyzed by applying a clustering technique to gain insight about the benefits and challenges of the assessment method for future systems. RPA operations at Cannon Air Force Base, NM propose the use of ground-based radars to monitor the airspace around the RPA. The Air Force Safety Center worked together with MIT Lincoln Laboratory for the safety assessment process of the groundbased radars. The knowledge gained in that process is documented in this thesis. Next, that system architecture is further applied to the influence matrix framework for analysis. The influence matrix represents the expected influence of element behavior changes on hazard risk. The framework is manipulated with a clustering technique to analyze results when changing the scope of the safety assessment method. In this work, the application of the influence matrix provided insights into the functionality of the ground-based radar system and usefulness of the IM method. The clustering technique provided a foundation for a formal process to handle scoping challenges for future complex system safety assessments. For the future, this research will have to be expanded further to better formalize the modeling and assessment of the influence matrix.