NASA has created a partnership with The Longbow Group to begin the first steps toward establishing beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight-corridors for unmanned aerial system (UAS) flight tests in Hampton Roads, Virginia.
The ultimate goal: Use drones to test flight corridors for larger Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) vehicles.
Under this Space Act Agreement, NASA’s Langley Research Center will partner with Longbow on the development of a Concept of Operations (ConOps), supporting infrastructure, data sharing requirements, and other factors required to conduct BVLOS operations between Langley’s City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) range and Longbow’s Unmanned Systems Research and Technology Center (USRTC) on Fort Monroe, Virginia.
Dubbed the AAM High Density Vertiplex (HDV) project, it is designed to “prototype and assess an ecosystem using small UAS as surrogates for larger Urban Air Mobility (UAM) aircraft,” according to NASA officials.
Another objective is to perform the testing, safety risk assessments, documentation, and collaboration with the FAA to allow routine BVLOS flights at NASA Langley, officials note.
“When implemented, these efforts will enable the UAM ecosystem prototype assessment with longer, more complex flight routes,” said Lou Glaab, HDV tech lead.
“One major benefit will be collaborating with Raytheon and Hampton University to include radar inputs from their Skyler radar,” said Glaab. “This system will be mounted on a Hampton University building in downtown Hampton and is designed to help enable ground-based sense and avoid, and will complement and extend our radar systems we are currently installing at NASA Langley.”
Longbow consists of researchers and supporters from the city of Hampton, Raytheon, and Hampton University, NASA official said.