Progress 09/01/18 to 12/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences identified in the project initiation report that we reached through participation in fourTactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meetings over the course of this project included: USDA Fire and Aviation Management, wildland fire and fire aviation practitioners, scientists and managers DOI Office of Aviation Services National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Wildland Fire Information Technology (WFIT) NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate In addition we were invited to support NASA'sScalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) work group in February 2020. While we were unable to connect with the FAA in this Phase II as an original target audience, as a result of our participation in the initial STEReO workshop, we have been invited to support the FAAAlliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) program's activity,Disaster Preparedness and Response using UAS in the NAS with Coordination Across First Responders. Changes/Problems:Covid-19 interfered with project activities, but was accommodated within schedule andbudget to achieve project objectives. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Conducted outreach and provided project overview andstatus briefings to Forest Service, Interior Department, CAL FIRE and other wildland fire practitioners and stakeholders to support CONOPS and use case development at four Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meetings, with the last being the virtual Fall 2020 meeting in PY3. Spring meetings were held at NASA Ames, and Fall meetings were held at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) NASA - Outreach was conducted to develop partnerships with the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) and the FAA for the application of UTM to wildland fire and other disasters, and for public safety through attendance at two meetings at NASA Ames Research Center. These included the joint NASA/FAA UTM Pilot Project (UPP) 2.0 meeting in December 2019, and the February 2020 STEReO Work Group meeting. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful in our attempts to participate in the UPP activity, but the STEReO meeting was very valuable as it helped validate Objectives 1 and 2, not only for wildland firefighting, but for disaster response and public safety operations as well. Conducted outreach to various NASA branches and other S&T agencies at the NASA Innovation and Opportunity Conference in Denver, 14-15 November, 2019 Provided a government-only brief of Air Commons™ at the USDA Wildland Fire Technology Modernization Industry Day, 26 June, 2019, in support of fire aviation manned and unmanned resource tracking What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Subsequent to our invitation to support NASA'sScalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) work group, we submitted a Phase I SBIR proposal in PY3 to NASA to explore UTM's application to wildland fire, disaster, and public safety airspace coordination under NASA's Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) technology thrust. AAM is NASA's follow-on to UTM. We are currently working with NASA to get underway on this SBIR, and we will continue to work with STEReO and the fire aviation community under it.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact Statement From Phase I through Phase II, we have successfully demonstrated and helped to validate the concept that UTM will support the integration of UAS into wildland fire and other response environments even before the UTM system is fully operational. We developed and demonstrated a deployable USS from technology readiness level (TRL) 1, proof-of-concept, in Phase I, to TRL6 in Phase II, and accomplished our objectives as noted below. One of the major impacts of this work has been to support the STEReO partnership between NASA's ARMD and the wildland fire community, which will continue to drive the application of UTM and other NASA technology to making fire aviation safer and improving wildland fire response. We will continue to be involved in the STEReO work group to further explore the research hypothesis and the broader integration of UTM with public safety command and control (C2) systems. In a connected environment, wildland firefighters and other UAS operators will access UTM services through a distributed network of highly automated UTM Service Suppliers (USS). These service suppliers will be responsible for communicating airspace constraints that are set in real-time by the FAA, and for coordinating unmanned air traffic management among all UAS and manned aircraft operators, the FAA and other stakeholders. Connectedness, e.g. presence or lack of cellular network coverage, has a significant impact on the design of a system for air domain awareness and operational coordination, and significant ramifications for UTM's integration into existing wildland fire C2 systems. In project year 1 (PY1) we demonstrated that UTM can provide awareness of the air domain by deploying our Air Commons™ UTM services in a connected environment as part of an interagency disaster-response emergency management exercise at the University on North Texas (UNT). UTM capabilities were successfully integrated into both an emergency management operations center and a mobile command center, as part of Operation Thunderstruck, a full-scale, joint operations emergency exercise with the city and county of Denton on 3 May, 2019. Simultaneous flight tracks were displayed in real time, with three different configurations for inserting air domain awareness information into the Operation's C2 infrastructure and chain of command. In a disconnected environment, the requirements for sensing and understanding the current state of the air domain understandably rests solely on the disconnected systems. To integrate UTM into a disconnected wildland fire C2 environment will require a deployable USS which we worked to develop in PY2. While we were able to validate this approach and to meet our technological objectives in this reporting period, COVID-19 affected our practitioner outreach and our test and evaluation partnership model in 2020. Two flight exercises that we had originally intended to conduct with wildland fire practitioners had to be re-planned and both were ultimately conducted in Central New York rather than in western fire states. The first set of trials, NYS20.1, was completed in PY2 and saw the transmission of complex UAS positional information across our Air Commons™ mesh network to all participants. The second was completed in PY3 under a no-cost extension and included a demonstration with the NY Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) in a relevant manned-unmanned environment, demonstrating performance at TRL6. The kickoff of NASA's Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) project and our invitation to participate in it was another major milestone 2020. Our concept that UTM could advance UAS integration into wildland firefighting grew out of our support for NASA's pioneering work in developing UTM. We believe our advocacy for a better definition of public safety UTM, and for looking to wildland fire as a public safety UTM testbed played a significant role in STEReO's inception as its mission and goals echo many of the concerns we have raised over the years, and wildland firefighting plays a prominent role in the Work Group's agenda. The STEReO project's activities to date have helped drive real progress toward air domain awareness, not only for wildland firefighters, but for disaster response and public safety in general. STEReO will help to facilitate the integration of unmanned resources into fire aviation. Wildland firefighters and other response organizations such as the Civil Air Patrol are currently exploring UTM as a 'common' interoperability solution as per Voss.* However, STEReO and its partner agencies have not yet begun to explore the broader aspects of UTM in the context of a diverse response environment where interoperability becomes a primary concern. Unfortunately this has had an impact on our ability to address the research hypothesis as current doctrine and practice do not look to evolve in this direction. Recent work in the public safety communications practitioner community suggests that using UTM as an interoperability platform can be a promising approach. Until fire aviation and public safety manned and unmanned aviators in general address the problem of interoperability, the full force-multiplier effect of state, tribal and local UAS resources on wildland fire and disaster response will not be realized. * Voss, B. and Anderson, E., 2019 https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ir/2019/NIST.IR.8255.pdf Objectives 1. Develop one or more concepts of operations (CONOPS) and use cases with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and wildland fire practitioners that can be used to test the research hypothesis A connected USS CONOPS was developed and demonstrated at the UNT joint-agency emergency management disaster exercise A deployable USS CONOPS was developed and reviewed that was based on a scenario where initial attack on a wildland fire was conducted by local firefighters Provided an Air Commons™ concept paper to the USDA Wildland Fire Technology Modernization program, outlining how UTM can support of fire aviation manned and unmanned resource tracking Provided inputs into NASA STEReO's development of Design Reference Missions for deployable USS connectivity testing exercises and a wildland firefighting flight demonstration 2. Investigate how a UTM Service Supplier (USS) platform can be applied and adapted to wildland fire use cases and CONOPS UTM capabilities were successfully integrated into an emergency management operations center and a mobile command center, as part of Operation Thunderstruck, a full-scale, joint operations emergency exercise with the city and county of Denton, and the University of North Texas, 3 May, 2019 Began development of a Wildland Fire UTM and UTM Service Supplier (WF-UTM/USS) system that would be available in both connected and deployable configurations. Developed and trademarked the WF-UTM/USS brand concept, Air Commons™ Demonstrated breadboard validation in a relevant manned/unmanned environment in October 2019 Advanced through TRL 5 breadboard validation to demonstration of a high-fidelity TRL6-level engineering prototype on full-scale realistic problems in June 2020 Demonstrated a TRL6-level engineering prototype in a relevant manned/ unmanned operations environment in October 2020 STEReO's adoption of the deployable USS approach validates our concept 3. Investigate USS integration and product fit with computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems and fire aviation dispatch Investigated the current state of dispatch for manned and unmanned aircraft from an air traffic management perspective to identify opportunities for UTM technology insertion into the CAD environment The primary conclusion is that there is no uniform approach to dispatch of manned and unmanned public safety aircraft across organizational or jurisdictional levels
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2020
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC)Fall Meeting / Nov 19 2020
SBIR Update
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) Fall Meeting / Nov 14, 2019
SBIR Update
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) Spring Meeting / May 30, 2019
SBIR Update
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Submitted a response to, and briefed at the Wildfire Technology Modernization Industry Day, 26 June, 2019, in Boise ID on tracking air assets, and establishing and maintaining air domain awareness.
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC)Fall Meeting / October 24, 2018
UAS Traffic Management (UTM) for Wildland Fire Management
|
Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences identified in the project initiation report that we reached through participation in the Fall 2019 Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meetings included: USDA Fire and Aviation Management, wildland fire and fire aviation practitioners, scientists and managers DOI Office of Aviation Services National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Wildland Fire Information Technology (WFIT) NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Additional target audiences that we reached via the venue identified included: Interagency, academic and private sector fire community, TFRSAC 1x Civil Air Patrol (CAP) through attendance at their November 2019 exercise in Oriskany, NY Colorado firefighters - Gary Briese, Executive Director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs National Institute of Standards and Technology's Public Safety Communications Research (NIST PSCR) program via site visit and one-on-on briefing NASA, the FAA, the Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology and the Federal Emergency Management Agency via meetings at NASA Ames. As a result of a NASA Ames meeting we were invited to support NASA's Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) work group, which is referenced in more detail below. Changes/Problems:AGI/One Sky, our partner in developing and providing NASA-compliant UTM services, concluded that creating a standalone, deployable version of their USS was not feasible, and we amicably terminated out development activities with them. Internally we concluded that USS-USS discovery and interoperability, primary goals for NASA and NASA-compliant USS developers, were secondary requirements for a) wildland firefighters in an environment where the UTM system was not fully operational yet, and b) for deployable USS in a disconnected environment. While the FAA works on operationalizing UTM, the disconnected environment is very similar to the pre-operational UTM environment because the likelihood of having to interact with another USS is very small. Additionally, our continued involvement with NASA has demonstrated that opportunities to build and test for compliance continue to be available, Hence we redirected the resources that would have supported development with AGI/One Sky to developing our own USS and focusing on air domain awareness and incident-level command and control in a disconnected environment. COVID-19 and the severity of the fire season affected the project's outreach to local firefighters andeliminated opportunities for T&E with wildland fire practitioners (e.g. NASTA),causingus to adjust T&E and other planned activities. Three changes are noted here: The impacts of COVID-19 on outreach to local firefighters,and our shift of resources that focused on deployable USS development affected our ability to explore CAD integration, which would ostensibly rely on UTM operations in anenvironment connected to a wide area networkor the cloud-capabilities that AGI/One Sky provided. Consequently, we also reassessed the CAD integration objective, and based on the results of our investigation into Objective 3 to date/as noted above, we decided to focus on looking at the current state of manned and unmanned dispatch from an air traffic management perspective, and to look for opportunities to unify the aviation dispatch function. This task is scheduled for PY3. The impacts on T&E also affected our ability to reach TRL 7, and demonstrate and evaluate system prototypes in an operational wildland fire environment. Travel and other restrictions related to COVID-19 led us to conduct our test and evaluation activities in Central New York rather than in Colorado. Additionally, based on a negative response from USDA to our briefing at the Wildfire Technology Modernization Industry Day in June 2019, we were led to working primarily with the New York Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (NYW CAP) for operational T&E. CAP operates the largest fleet of public safety small UAS (SUAS) in the nation and is the largest operator of single engine Cessna aircraft in the world. The NYW was the first CAP Wing to become fully operational with their SUAS capabilities, and they participated in our manned/unmanned teaming T&E exercise in Central New York in the Fall of 2020. CAP is currently working with FEMA to embed CAP SUAS capabilities in regional and national all-hazards response standard operating procedures, and they are a full NASA STEReO partner - as is the wildland firefighting community. As we continue to participate in STEReO, wildland firefighters will be kept apprised of developments with our Air Commons™ system and technology. A no-cost extension until 31 Dec 2020 was requested and granted, allowing us to extend our work for a trimester into PY 3. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A multi-phase workplan had been outlined for PY2 that involved significant practitioner outreach via participation in National Aerial Supervision Training Academy (NASTA) Air Tactical Group Supervisor (Air Attack) training, and a Fire Chief-level stakeholder roundtable, as well as continued outreach to NASA and participation in TFRSAC. Unfortunately these items were disrupted due to COVID-19 as explained in the Changes/Problems section, but significant outreach results were accomplished in spite of these setbacks. Conducted outreach and a provided status briefing to Forest Service, Interior Department, CAL FIRE and other wildland fire practitioners and stakeholders to support CONOPS and use case development at the Fall 2019 Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meeting at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) NASA - Outreach was conducted to develop partnerships with the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) and the FAA for the application of UTM to wildland fire and other disasters, and for public safety through attendance at two meetings at NASA Ames Research Center. These included the joint NASA/FAA UTM Pilot Project (UPP) 2.0 meeting in December 2019, and the February 2020 STEReO Work Group meeting. Unfortunately we were once again unsuccessful in our attempts to participate in the UPP activity, but the STEReO meeting was very valuable as it helped validate Objectives 1 and 2, not only for wildland firefighting, but for disaster response and public safety operations as well. Various NASA branches at the Innovation and Opportunity Conference in Denver, 14-15 November, 2019 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?A final manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T)exercise, CNY 20.2, is scheduled to be conducted with the New York Wing of the Civil Air Patrol in October 2020. We will execute a task that will begin to capture the current state of manned and unmanned aircraft dispatch from an air traffic management perspective, and begin looking at opportunities for integrating the two. A final technical report will be prepared.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact Statement Under the FAA's unmanned traffic management (UTM) concept of operations (CONOPS), wildland firefighters will be responsible for managing their UAS operations safely without the need for air traffic control services provided by the FAA. In a connected environment, e.g. areas with cellular coverage, a distributed network of highly automated systems will be responsible for communicating airspace constraints that are set in real-time by the FAA, and for coordinating unmanned air traffic management among all UAS and manned aircraft operators, the FAA and other stakeholders. Wildland firefighters and other UAS operators will access these UAS traffic management services through a UTM Service Supplier (USS) platform. UAS operators may provision their own USS, or they may subscribe to independent USS service providers. As we demonstrated in project year 1 (PY1), UTM can add to incident commanders' and emergency managers' awareness of the air domain, but two additional elements are required to support wildland fire and other types of incident responses - the ability to operate in a disconnected environment, and integration into the command and control (C2) environment. Just as connectedness has a significant impact on the design of a system for air domain awareness and coordination, it also has significant ramifications forC2 integration. Given the current state of field-borne C2 technology, C2 integration is primarily an exercise in human factors, and requires active practitioner involvement. In PY1, we investigated and validated the utility of UTM for disaster air domain awareness and airspace management in a connected environment. In PY2 we worked on developing a deployable USS for disconnected environments. While we were able to validate our first two project Objectives and to meet our technological objectives in this reporting period, testing and evaluating human factors and CONOPS with practitioners still needed to be done at the end of PY2. A multi-phase workplan had been outlined for PY2 that involved significant practitioner outreach in parallel with engineering development. An initial exercise involving integrated manned and unmanned flight trials of a breadboard prototype was planned and conducted in October 2019 in Central New York (CNY). Then an updated Engineering Prototype (EP) was to be built based on the technical lessons identified during the NYS19 flight trials that would result in more robust and capable hardware and software in various configurations. A series of flight test plans was to be conducted in 2020 to trial the new EP configuration from end-to-end with wildland firefighters, work out software issues and then culminate in a manned-unmanned demonstration in an operational environment. The goal for the PY2 R&D was to advance our Air Commons™ system through technology readiness levels (TRL) 5 and 6 to TRL7, system testing with practitioners in an operational environment. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly restricted the ability to plan and execute activities. For example, our stakeholder outreach lead, Garry Briese, was stranded in New Zealand for a critical 6 weeks. Chief Briese is the Executive Director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs and has extensive experience with wildland fire and local fire departments. Fortunately engineering and software development were mostly unaffected, and the EP and TRL6 software were all completed within a modified schedule. Two flight exercises originally planned for 2020 had to be re-configured though, and both were ultimately undertaken in CNY rather than with wildland fire practitioners. The first of these two trials, NYS20.1, was completed in June of 2020and saw the transmission of complex UAS positional information across our Air Commons™ mesh network to all participants. The second was completed in PY3 under a no-cost extension and included a demonstration with the NY Wing of the Civil Air Patrol (NYW CAP) in a relevant manned-unmanned environment, indicating performance at TRL6. Both were considered complete successes and were reported to the wildfire community through a presentation to the Fall TFRSAC (in November of 2020, also in PY3). Unfortunately the ability to conduct test and evaluation (T&E) in an operational environment with wildland fire practitioners and to be able to advance to TRL7 were not feasible because of COVID restrictions. However, the need for practitioner-facing evaluation of C2 integration is satisfied by our work with NASA's Scalable Traffic Management for Emergency Response Operations (STEReO) work group and working directly with the NYW CAP. Progress toward Goal and Objectives The goal of this research is to demonstrate that the integration of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/SUAS) into wildland fire operations is enhanced by using elements of the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) ecosystem, even before the UTM system is fully deployed. In particular, the research hypothesis proposes that letting local fire departments use their SUAS alongside manned fire aviation assets can help maximize the effectiveness of initial attack, part of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy's highest priority - safe and effective response to wildfires. Three technical objectives were defined to address this goal and accomplishments for each are summarized below. 1. Develop one or more concepts of operations (CONOPS) and use cases with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and wildland fire practitioners that can be used to test the research hypothesis A deployable USS CONOPS was developed in PY1 that was based on a scenario where initial attack on a wildland fire was conducted by local firefighters. It was reviewed by Chief Garry Briese in PY2. This CONOPS was briefed to Forest Service, Interior Department, CAL FIRE and other wildland fire practitioners and stakeholders at the Fall 2019 Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meeting at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) Provided inputs into NASA STEReO's development of Design Reference Missions for deployable USS connectivity testing exercises and a wildland firefighting flight demonstration 2. Investigate how a UTM Service Supplier (USS) platform can be applied and adapted to wildland fire use cases and CONOPS STEReO's adoption of the deployable USS approach validates our concept Continued development of the Air Commons™ Wildland Fire UTM and UTM Service Supplier (WF-UTM/USS) system that will be available in both connected and deployable configurations. Advanced through TRL 5 breadboard validation to TRL6, high-fidelity system prototype Demonstrated breadboard validation in a relevant manned/unmanned environment in October 2019, and a high fidelity engineering prototype (EP) on full-scale realistic problems in June 2020. EP will be demonstrated in a relevant manned/ unmanned operations environment in PY3 3. Investigate USS integration and product fit with computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems and fire aviation dispatch The impacts of COVID-19 on our outreach to wildland firefighting dispatchers, shifts in resources and changes in our ability to support UTM operations in a network-connected CAD environment affected our approach to this objective. Additionally, in the wildland firefighting community, guidance on ordering wildland fire drone resources was published in April of 2019 that didn't involve direct dispatch. It also became apparent in 2020 that local fire department adoption of drone technology was slowing and that fire aviation integration with local firefighters' drone resources was not viewed favorably in the wildland firefighting community. Consequently we will investigate the current state of dispatch for manned and unmanned aircraft from an air traffic management perspective to identify opportunities for UTM technology insertion into the CAD environment in PY3 under a no-cost extension.
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) Fall Meeting / Nov 14, 2019
SBIR Update
|
Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Target audiences identified in the project initiation report that we reached through participation in two Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meetings included: USDA Fire and Aviation Management, wildland fire and fire aviation practitioners, scientists and managers DOI Office of Aviation Services National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) Wildland Fire Information Technology (WFIT) NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Additional target audiences that we reached via the venue identified included: USFS UAS Program Manager, one-on-one meeting USFS Wildfire Technology Modernization Program, Boise Industry Day Interagency, academic and private sector fire community, TFRSAC 2x Civil Air Patrol (CAP) through attendance at their August 2019 conference in Baltimore All Hazards Consortium Executive Director, Tom Moran, June 2019 Colorado firefighters - Gary Briese, Executive Director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Denton County, City & University of North Texas (UNT) emergency management community through participation in a joint emergency exercise in May 2019. Changes/Problems:In our original proposal, the Lone Star UAS Test Site was identified as a partner to support deployable UTM Service Supplier (USS) software development. This was changed to be AGI / One Sky instead. AGI/ One Sky is one of the eight NASA-qualified USS developers, and they agreed to work with us for the same not-to-exceed value that was proposed for Lone Star What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Conducted outreach and provided status briefings to Forest Service, Interior Department, CAL FIRE and other wildland fire practitioners and stakeholders to support CONOPS and use case development at the Fall Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) meeting at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), and the Spring TFRSAC meeting at NASA Ames NASA - Outreach was conducted to develop a partnership with the NASA Airspace Operations Lab for the application of UTM to wildland fire and other disasters Provided a government-only brief of Air Commons™ at the USDA Wildland Fire Technology Modernization Industry Day, 26 June, 2019, in support of fire aviation manned and unmanned resource tracking What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?A multi-phase workplan has been outlined for PY2 that involves significant practitioner outreach including: Participation in National Aerial Supervision Training Academy (NASTA) Air Tactical Group Supervisor (Air Attack) training Practitioner and stakeholder roundtable sessions led by Garry Briese, Executive Director of the Colorado State Fire Chiefs Continued outreach to NASA Continued support for TFRSAC In parallel, engineering prototypes (EP) will be developed and tested in relevant and operational environments with manned and unmanned aircraft, and lessons-learned will be incorporated into the development cycle. We anticipate a manned-unmanned demonstration with wildland fire practitioners. The goal for the PY2 R&D is to advance the Air Commons™ deployable system through technology readiness level (TRL) 5 to TRL7 with system testing in an operational environment.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Impact Statement Under the FAA's unmanned traffic management (UTM) concept of operations (CONOPS), wildland firefighters will be responsible for managing their UAS operations safely without the need for air traffic control services provided by the FAA. In a connected environment, e.g. areas with cellular coverage, a distributed network of highly automated systems will be responsible for communicating airspace constraints that are set in real-time by the FAA, and for coordinating unmanned air traffic management among all UAS and manned aircraft operators, the FAA and other stakeholders. Wildland firefighters and other UAS operators will access these UAS traffic management services through a UTM Service Supplier (USS) platform. UAS operators may provision their own USS, or they may subscribe to independent USS service providers. In this reporting period we deployed our Air Commons™ UTM services in a connected environment as part of a disaster-response emergency management exercise at the University on North Texas (UNT). UTM capabilities were successfully integrated into both an emergency management operations center and a mobile command center, as part of Operation Thunderstruck, a full-scale, joint operations emergency exercise with the city and county of Denton on 3 May, 2019. Simultaneous flight tracks were displayed in real time, with three different configurations for inserting air domain awareness information as part of Operation Thunderstruck. The City of Denton and UNT alternate in developing and holding operational control of an annual emergency management exercise within the city limits. The 2019 'Operation Thunderstruck' was designed to simulate a severe weather and mass casualty event, with a tornado touching down near UNT's occupied Apogee Stadium with multiple casualties and then again on one of the UNT campuses. Emergency services, coordinated by the City and UNT Emergency Management teams in both a mobile emergency command center and an emergency management bunker, had to respond to wounded personnel, damage assessment and debris removal needs. Due to the exercise's tight timeline, the proximity of medical evacuation flights in the schedule, and the reluctance of the exercise organizers to fly both sUAS and manned aircraft in the same airspace, the UMEX and UNT teams conducted the demonstrations prior to the formal exercise start. In a 15 minute 'drone window' two small UAS (sUAS) teams were able to provide informational support to the Denton Emergency Management Services (EMS) in the mobile command center, which was repeated to the bunker. Scheduling the drone window separately from the full exercise had the benefits of giving UMEX team members the opportunity for having a more focused interaction with the emergency management teams inside the mobile command center, as well as providing an extended flight window relative to the exercise timeline. Both sUAS teams came from the UNT Electrical Engineering Department with one working on video transmission to the bunker using directional antennae, while the UMEX team worked with the staff in the mobile command center to demonstrate the value of UTM for air domain awareness, and directing air operations. In support of operations, members of the UMEX team established a Launch and Recovery (LR) site near to the stadium and completed safety briefs internally and with the EMS personnel. One team member set-up the OneSky UTM in the command vehicle, another established a simulated standalone Air Commons™ in a stadium office, and a County emergency management member observed the display in the remote bunker. The flight trial objectives for the Exercise were successfully achieved within the constraints laid out, and value of air domain awareness was demonstrated to, and validated by emergency managers and incident commanders. The foundations were laid for developing a deployable USS for a disconnected environment, and manned/unmanned trials in the coming months. In addition, Denton County expressed interest in becoming a public safety partner and testbed, working with us on systems development, and in purchasing Air Commons™ capabilities when they are ready for sale. Progress toward Goal and Objectives The goal of this research is to demonstrate that the integration of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS/SUAS) into wildland fire operations is enhanced by using elements of the UAS Traffic Management (UTM) ecosystem, even before the UTM system is fully deployed. In particular, the research hypothesis proposes that letting local fire departments use their SUAS alongside manned fire aviation assets can help maximize the effectiveness of initial attack, part of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy's highest priority - safe and effective response to wildfires. Three technical objectives were defined to address this goal and accomplishments for each are summarized below. 1. Develop one or more concepts of operations (CONOPS) and use cases with NASA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and wildland fire practitioners that can be used to test the research hypothesis A deployable USS CONOPS was developed and will be reviewed with wildland fire practitioners. A connected USS CONOPS was developed and demonstrated at the UNT joint-agency emergency management disaster exercise FAA - Developed a concept and submitted a proposal to participate in the FAA's next step toward operationalizing UTM, the Remote Identification (ID) Demonstration Program Provided an Air Commons™ concept paper to the USDA Wildland Fire Technology Modernization program, outlining how UTM can support of fire aviation manned and unmanned resource tracking 2. Investigate how a UTM Service Supplier (USS) platform can be applied and adapted to wildland fire use cases and CONOPS Began development of a Wildland Fire UTM and UTM Service Supplier (WF-UTM/USS) system that would be available in both connected and deployable configurations. Developed and trademarked the WF-UTM/USS brand concept, Air Commons™ UTM capabilities were successfully integrated into an emergency management operations center and a mobile command center, as part of Operation Thunderstruck, a full-scale, joint operations emergency exercise with the city and county of Denton, and the University of North Texas, 3 May, 2019 Simultaneous flight tracks were displayed in real time, with three different data-insert configurations as part of Operation Thunderstruck On track to field a deployable UTM and conduct OPEVAL before the end of Y1 3. Investigate USS integration and product fit with computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems and fire aviation dispatch Developed a concept for adequate dispatch of the most appropriate emergency resources to a wildland fire for CAL FIRE, and submitted a response to their request for innovative ideas
Publications
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC)Fall Meeting / October 24, 2018
UAS Traffic Management (UTM) for Wildland Fire Management
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
Tactical Fire Remote Sensing Advisory Committee (TFRSAC) #31 Spring Meeting / May 29 - 30, 2019
SBIR Update
- Type:
Conference Papers and Presentations
Status:
Accepted
Year Published:
2019
Citation:
USDA Wildfire Technology Modernization Programs Industry Day, June 26, 2019
UTM Resource Tracking for Fire Aviation
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