UAS pilot support for departure, approach and airfield operations

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have great potential to be used in a wide variety of civil applications such as environmental applications, emergency situations, surveillance tasks and more. The development of Flight Control Systems (FCS) coupled with the availability of other Commercial Off-The Shelf (COTS) components is enabling the introduction of UAS into the civil market. The sophistication of existing FCS is also making these systems accessible to end users with little aeronautics expertise. However, much work remains to be done to deliver systems that can be properly integrated in standard aeronautical procedures used by manned aviation

3D-in-2D Displays for ATC.

This paper reports on the efforts and accomplishments of the 3D-in-2D Displays for ATC project at the end of Year 1. We describe the invention of 10 novel 3D/2D visualisations that were mostly implemented in the Augmented Reality ARToolkit. These prototype implementations of visualisation and interaction elements can be viewed on the accompanying video. We have identified six candidate design concepts which we will further research and develop. These designs correspond with the early feasibility studies stage of maturity as defined by the NASA Technology Readiness Level framework. We developed the Combination Display Framework from a review of the literature, and used it for analysing display designs in terms of display technique used and how they are combined. The insights we gained from this framework then guided our inventions and the human-centered innovation process we use to iteratively invent. Our designs are based on an understanding of user work practices. We also developed a simple ATC simulator that we used for rapid experimentation and evaluation of design ideas. We expect that if this project continues, the effort in Year 2 and 3 will be focus on maturing the concepts and employment in a operational laboratory settings

How you move reveals who you are: understanding human behavior by analyzing trajectory data

The widespread use of mobile devices is producing a huge amount of trajectory data, making the discovery of movement patterns possible, which are crucial for understanding human behavior. Significant advances have been made with regard to knowledge discovery, but the process now needs to be extended bearing in mind the emerging field of behavior informatics. This paper describes the formalization of a semantic-enriched KDD process for supporting meaningful pattern interpretations of human behavior. Our approach is based on the integration of inductive reasoning (movement pattern discovery) and deductive reasoning (human behavior inference). We describe the implemented Athena system, which supports such a process, along with the experimental results on two different application domains related to traffic and recreation management

An Online Stream Monitoring Algorithm for Fraud Detection in the Transport of Goods, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2020, nr 4

The process of monitoring vehicles used in road transports plays an important role in detecting fraud committed by drivers. Algorithm designers face a number of challenges, including large number of vehicles monitored, demands related to online calculations, and ability to easily explain fraud alarms triggered to supervisors who make final decisions about actions to be taken. In this paper, we propose rather general, lightweight stream, online heuristics. The vehicle’s position is periodically controlled by a GNSS device. The algorithm detects potential illegal activities along the route between the origin and the destination. Anomalies in the vehicle’s trajectory are detected, based on a multi-resolution analysis of the economy of routes. The economy metric is easily understood and verifiable by controllers. The solution is also capable of identifying clearly suspicious trajectories that popular geofencing approaches would overlook. The scale on which the solution may be adopted is obtained thanks to the stream – like nature of the algorithm: essentially, the resources used do not increase along with the size of the input stream (the number of GNSS frames generated for the vehicle). An experiment illustrating the algorithm’s viability is presented as wel

Safety‐oriented discrete event model for airport A‐SMGCS reliability assessment

A detailed analysis of State of the Art Technologies and Procedures into Airport Advanced-Surface Movement Guidance and Control Systems has been provided in this thesis, together with the review ofStatistical Monte Carlo Analysis, Reliability Assessment and Petri Nets theories. This practical and theoretical background has lead the author to the conclusion that there is a lack of linkage in between these fields. At the same of time the rapid increasing of Air Traffic all over the world, has brought in evidence the urgent need of practical instruments able to identify and quantify the risks connected with Aircraft operations on the ground, since the Airport has shown to be the actual ‘bottle neck’ of the entire Air Transport System. Therefore, the only winning approach to such a critical matter has to be multi-disciplinary, sewing together apparently different subjects, coming from the most disparate areas of interest and trying to fulfil the gap. The result of this thesis work has come to a start towards the end, when a Timed Coloured Petri Net (TCPN) model of a ‘sample’ Airport A-SMGCS has been developed, that is capable of taking into account different orders of questions arisen during these recent years and tries to give them some good answers. The A-SMGCS Airport model is, in the end, a parametric tool relying on Discrete Event System theory, able to perform a Reliability Analysis of the system itself, that: • uses a Monte Carlo Analysis applied to a Timed Coloured Petri Net, whose purpose is to evaluate the Safety Level of Surface Movements along an Airport • lets the user to analyse the impact of Procedures and Reliability Indexes of Systems such as Surface Movement Radars, Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, Airport Lighting Systems, Microwave Sensors, and so on… onto the Safety Level of Airport Aircraft Transport System • not only is a valid instrument in the Design Phase, but it is useful also into the Certifying Activities an in monitoring the Safety Level of the above mentioned System with respect to changes to Technologies and different Procedures.This TCPN model has been verified against qualitative engineering expectations by using simulation experiments and occupancy time schedules generated a priori. Simulation times are good, and since the model has been written into Simulink/Stateflow programming language, it can be compiled to run real-time in C language (Real-time workshop and Stateflow Coder), thus relying on portable code, able to run virtually on any platform, giving even better performances in terms of execution time. One of the most interesting applications of this work is the estimate, for an Airport, of the kind of A-SMGCS level of implementation needed (Technical/Economical convenience evaluation). As a matter of fact, starting from the Traffic Volume and choosing the kind of Ground Equipment to be installed, one can make predictions about the Safety Level of the System: if the value is compliant with the TLS required by ICAO, the A-SMGCS level of Implementation is sufficiently adequate. Nevertheless, even if the Level of Safety has been satisfied, some delays due to reduced or simplified performances (even if Safety is compliant) of some of the equipment (e.g. with reference to False Alarm Rates) can lead to previously unexpected economical consequences, thus requiring more accurate systems to be installed, in order to meet also Airport economical constraints. Work in progress includes the analysis of the effect of weather conditions and re-sequencing of a given schedule. The effect of re-sequencing a given schedule is not yet enough realistic since the model does not apply inter arrival and departure separations. However, the model might show some effect on different sequences based on runway occupancy times. A further developed model containing wake turbulence separation conditions would be more sensitive for this case. Hence, further work will be directed towards: • The development of On-Line Re-Scheduling based on the available actual runway/taxiway configuration and weather conditions. • The Engineering Safety Assessment of some small Italian Airport A-SMGCSs (Model validation with real data). • The application of Stochastic Differential Equations systems in order to evaluate the collision risk on the ground inside the Place alone on the Petri Net, in the event of a Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA), by adopting Reich Collision Risk Model. • Optimal Air Traffic Control Algorithms Synthesis (Adaptive look-ahead Optimization), by Dynamically Timed Coloured Petri Nets, together with the implementation of Error-Recovery Strategies and Diagnosis Functions

Belief State Planning for Autonomous Driving: Planning with Interaction, Uncertain Prediction and Uncertain Perception

This thesis presents a behavior planning algorithm for automated driving in urban environments with an uncertain and dynamic nature. The uncertainty in the environment arises by the fact that the intentions as well as the future trajectories of the surrounding drivers cannot be measured directly but can only be estimated in a probabilistic fashion. Even the perception of objects is uncertain due to sensor noise or possible occlusions. When driving in such environments, the autonomous car must predict the behavior of the other drivers and plan safe, comfortable and legal trajectories. Planning such trajectories requires robust decision making when several high-level options are available for the autonomous car. Current planning algorithms for automated driving split the problem into different subproblems, ranging from discrete, high-level decision making to prediction and continuous trajectory planning. This separation of one problem into several subproblems, combined with rule-based decision making, leads to sub-optimal behavior. This thesis presents a global, closed-loop formulation for the motion planning problem which intertwines action selection and corresponding prediction of the other agents in one optimization problem. The global formulation allows the planning algorithm to make the decision for certain high-level options implicitly. Furthermore, the closed-loop manner of the algorithm optimizes the solution for various, future scenarios concerning the future behavior of the other agents. Formulating prediction and planning as an intertwined problem allows for modeling interaction, i.e. the future reaction of the other drivers to the behavior of the autonomous car. The problem is modeled as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) with a discrete action and a continuous state and observation space. The solution to the POMDP is a policy over belief states, which contains different reactive plans for possible future scenarios. Surrounding drivers are modeled with interactive, probabilistic agent models to account for their prediction uncertainty. The field of view of the autonomous car is simulated ahead over the whole planning horizon during the optimization of the policy. Simulating the possible, corresponding, future observations allows the algorithm to select actions that actively reduce the uncertainty of the world state. Depending on the scenario, the behavior of the autonomous car is optimized in (combined lateral and) longitudinal direction. The algorithm is formulated in a generic way and solved online, which allows for applying the algorithm on various road layouts and scenarios. While such a generic problem formulation is intractable to solve exactly, this thesis demonstrates how a sufficiently good approximation to the optimal policy can be found online. The problem is solved by combining state of the art Monte Carlo tree search algorithms with near-optimal, domain specific roll-outs. The algorithm is evaluated in scenarios such as the crossing of intersections under unknown intentions of other crossing vehicles, interactive lane changes in narrow gaps and decision making at intersections with large occluded areas. It is shown that the behavior of the closed-loop planner is less conservative than comparable open-loop planners. More precisely, it is even demonstrated that the policy enables the autonomous car to drive in a similar way as an omniscient planner with full knowledge of the scene. It is also demonstrated how the autonomous car executes actions to actively gather more information about the surrounding and to reduce the uncertainty of its belief state

Overtaking as an interactional achievement: video analyses of participants' practices in traffic

In this article we pursue a systematic and extensive study of overtaking in traffic as an interactional event. Our focus is on the accountable organisation and accom- plishment of overtaking by road users in real-world traffic situations. Data and anal- ysis are drawn from multiple research groups studying driving from an ethnometh- odological and conversation analytic perspective. Building on multimodal and se- quential analyses of video recordings of overtaking events, the article describes the shared practices which overtakers and overtaken parties use in displaying, recog- nising and coordinating their manoeuvres. It examines the three sequential phases of an overtaking event: preparation and projection; the overtaking proper; the re- alignment post-phase including retrospective accounts and assessments. We iden- tify how during each of these phases drivers and passengers organise intra-vehicle and inter-vehicle practices: driving and non-driving related talk between vehicle- occupants, the emerging spatiotemporal ecology of the road, and the driving actions of other road users. The data is derived from a two camera set-up recording the road ahead and car interior. The recordings are from three settings: daily commuting, driving lessons, race-car coaching. The events occur on a variety of road types (mo- torways, country roads, city streets, a race track, etc.), in six languages (English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, and Swedish) and in seven countries (Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK). From an exception- ally diverse collection of video data, the study of which is made possible thanks to the innovative collaboration of multiple researchers, the article exhibits the range of practical challenges and communicative skills involved in overtaking.status: Published onlin

Belief State Planning for Autonomous Driving: Planning with Interaction, Uncertain Prediction and Uncertain Perception

This work presents a behavior planning algorithm for automated driving in urban environments with an uncertain and dynamic nature. The algorithm allows to consider the prediction uncertainty (e.g. different intentions), perception uncertainty (e.g. occlusions) as well as the uncertain interactive behavior of the other agents explicitly. Simulating the most likely future scenarios allows to find an optimal policy online that enables non-conservative planning under uncertainty

Conceptual-Level Analysis and Design of Unmanned Air Traffic Management Systems

There have been multiple announcements by different companies in the past couple years of package delivery by drone and air taxi projects. However, there are still many barriers to the deployment of high densities of aerial vehicles in low-altitude airspace over urban areas. Current Air Traffic Control Systems cannot handle the high density of traffic being forecast. Integrating these new types of on-demand air mobility in the National Airspace requires a fundamental change to the traffic management system. Many different concepts of operations for unmanned traffic management (UTM) systems have been proposed, but there is no common framework to evaluate and compare alternatives at a conceptual design stage. This might cause a locally optimal system to be chosen, resulting in lower safety and economic performance than what would have been possible if a more systematic approach to the design of UTM system had been followed. In this thesis, a systematic approach to the design of UTM systems is introduced. Based on the literature on conceptual design, a five step approach to the design of UTM systems is proposed. The steps of the approach are: define operating scenarios, generate UTM alternatives, select performance criteria, evaluate, and make decision. To generate UTM alternatives in a systematic manner, a matrix of alternatives should be created. However, this requires a system decomposition that does not currently exist for UTM systems. Here, a system decomposition into four subsystems is proposed: airspace structure, access control, preflight planning, and collision avoidance. For each subsystem, alternatives are identified using the literature. For the second step of the approach, operating scenarios for UTM are not well-defined. There are many external factors outside of the designer’s control, and different studies make different assumptions. Three different external factors, or components of an operating scenario, are identified: demand, static obstacles, and priority traffic. The impact of the different subsystems and external factors on the performance of a given UTM architecture cannot be found in the literature. Many studies evaluate a point design or fix assumptions to focus on a single subsystem. There is no available tool that allows to evaluate different UTM architectures while varying all the elements that have been presented here. To bridge that gap, an agent-based simulation was developed to allow the evaluation of the UTM systems generated using the matrix of alternatives in different operating scenarios. For the fourth step of the approach, performance criteria are selected from the aviation literature. To capture safety, the number of losses of separation and near-midair-collisions per flight hour are used. To measure the efficiency of the trajectories, a time and energy efficiency metrics are introduced. The capacity of the system is evaluated for a fixed overall density using the throughput, or number of vehicles completing a flight per minute. Finally, two simple multi-attribute decision making methods are selected from the literature. This allows to rank architectures based on their performance in a given scenario for a given set of weights representing a designer’s preferences. This thesis also proposes a novel 4D trajectory planning algorithm that relies on a local collision avoidance method. Experiments show that it performs well in terms of time efficiency and throughput when compared to a decoupled approach. The novel algorithm achieves a comparable performance to a global optimization algorithm in a nominal cruise scenario but is much more computationally efficient. The impact of the inclusion of certain subsystems and external factors on the outcome of the conceptual design stage is systematically evaluated in a series of experiments. Performance of different architectures is evaluated with and without the subsystem or external factor of interest. The experiments show that there are significant interactions between agents' autonomous behaviors, airspace structure, and external factors such as demand, static obstacles, and priority traffic. The decision tables obtained with and without the element of interest are compared, and weights are found such that the architecture rankings are different. This shows that neglecting these interactions or making simplifying assumptions may change the outcome of the conceptual design stage and result in the selection of an architecture that underperforms in terms of safety, capacity or efficiency. This is validated on two use cases, an air taxi scenario and a drone delivery scenario. In the air taxi scenario, using the proposed approach results in the selection of an alternative with a 25\% higher score than the alternative selected with a baseline approach. As a result of the work conducted in this thesis, the importance of including the autonomy, airspace structure, demand, static obstacles, and priority traffic in the early stage of UTM evaluation has been demonstrated. The necessity of including other subsystems or external factors can be evaluated by following the same process that was demonstrated in the thesis.Ph.D