Assessing the Integration of the UAS into the NAS through NextGen - Research Paper

Introduction

Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles can also be described as Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) comprises the remotely controlled system, Command, Control and Communication Station (C3), and air vehicles (Sullivan, 2017). Assessing the use of UAS is significant because it is a new technological development in aeronautical engineering. UAS provides real-time surveillance in activities that involve high risks to human life. UAS is also a complex system that constitutes elements such as Data terminals, Video terminals, Air data relays, ground control station and a variety of aircraft. Looking at the complexity of UAS and public use of the NAS, it necessary to consider risks and safety measures associated with the NextGen integration of the UAS into the NAS. The purpose of the NAS is to provide air transport to human beings, thus, considering the nature of UAS, it crucial to assess best ways of integration to avoid fatal incidences in the NAS through improved data layouts, algorithms and communication procedures. Although NextGen is a great symbol of automation in the digital era, it calls for keen policies, rules and regulation regarding the standard of practice in the civil airspace. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), UAS entails aerial vehicles that lack onboard pilot; therefore, assessing their integration into the NAS is significant to reinforce their intended purposes such as ISR and surveillance (Lee, 2016).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Most research works have dealt with the significance of unmanned aircraft vehicles. Other studies focus on the risks and policy issues limiting the use of UAS. Additionally, most of these researches dwell so much on anatomical features of UAS other than focusing on the best way to create a consolidated system consisting of both the unmanned aircraft system and onboard pilot systems through NextGen. However, my research aims at assessing the best policies to integrate UAS into the national airspace through NextGen to minimize risks in the national space. My research also intends to give solutions to the best measures that will help to control the use of unmanned aircraft system without hindering scientific-technological advancement in future. The 2003 policy signed by George Bush, the former American president to establish a Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) played a less significant role in recognizing the integration of unmanned aircraft system into the national airspace through NextGen (Gupta et al., 2013).

Although JPDO was established within the U.S. Department of Trasport Federal Aviation Administration, little efforts was directed toward the development of unmanned aerial vehicles despite having the legal mandate to carry out research and development. More so, JPDO mandate was limited to research and development and not finding safety ways of integrating the UAS operations in the civil airspace through NextGen. In 2004, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made the first attempt to integrate UAS into the public airspace using access point five (Jansen, 2015). The execution involved a collaboration of different departments such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DOD), NASA and FAA. In this operation, the aim was to establish a High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle in the civil airspace system. Lack of proper policies, inconsistency in research and development as well as funding led to the failure of this project in 2006 (Hackenberg, 2016). Focusing on this case, therefore, this study will analyze the need for proper policies and funding from both the FAA, NASA, federal and state governments to sustain current and future UAS integration efforts through NextGen.

In 2004, FAA established an independent advisory committee known as Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) to look into UAS integration through NextGen process and recommend the best standard of practice. The select committee formulated two policy documents referred to as DO-324 and DO-320 published in 2007 (Jansen, 2015). Another policy document called Operational Services and Environmental Definition (OSED) was created in 2010 by the same committee. However, the policy documents published by the committee played a little role in developing UAS performance standards and procedures through NextGen. The select committee established by FAA and Joint Integrated Product Team created by the DOD failed to collaborate their efforts through consolidated policies and procedures towards integration instead each committee and joint teams carried out independent activities of integration. ExCOM committee was established in 2008 after signing into policy a National Defense Authorization Act. The policy included other UAS stakeholders such as DHS and NASA to look into challenges of UAS integration and suggest the best practice standards. The establishment of ExCOM committee by the Congress indicates a loophole in policy and procedures to bring together different UAS stakeholders to work as one unified force.

Following the previously failed collaboration that resulted in the establishment of ExCOM committee, it is essential to use this study to evaluate the success of ExCom in bringing together various stakeholders in aeronautical engineering to enhance NextGen automated systems. There are multiple operations, policies, and procedures established by ExCOM that can be reviewed to ascertain goal achievement on matters Target Level of Safety (TLS) in the NextGen automated systems. It is also relevant to assess the legal mandate policy signed into policy by the president in 2012 to reinforce funding and support of the FAA (Elias, 2012). It is also crucial to evaluate policy implications on the NextGen automated systems safety measures. Safety-Related problems are the major issues affecting the success of UAS integration into the national aerial system through NexGen since there is a lack of proper safety measures, high level of risk assessment and reliability. Therefore assessment of the security of NextGen automated system development is crucial in improving unmanned system efficiency.

In this context, the logic will be reviewing civil aircraft safety measures to determine weak rules that contribute to UAS failures, errors and malfunction and suggest safety measures and policy reforms that would minimize challenges of UAS integration through NextGen. Information on safety will be obtained from FAA manuscript on System Approach to Safety Operations (SASO). Accessing the FAA clauses on safety management will explicitly help to characterize the current state of UAS safety. Determining imminent hazards that hinder integration process will help to categorize high-risk safety hazards that need to be included in the present and future UAS integration process. The study will also explore different policies on individual and collective risks (Elias, 2012).

According to the military Range Commander Council (RCC), personal risk refers to dangers associated to a person as a quantifiable causality basing on all possible risks while collective risks include perils to a broader target of causalities covering a large group of people with regards to the current hazards. The threats to be established will be both ascertain risks of manned and unmanned aircraft. This research will also involve a review of the current safety policies and integration process to determine the success of future UAS operations in the NAS (Jansen, 2015).

Statement of the Problem

The integration of UAS into the NAS through NextGen raises the question of constitutional privacy and civil liberties rights. By using the UAS in the civil airspace, privacy issues arise because the major function of UAS is surveillance. Therefore, the use of unmanned aircraft vehicles requires adequate legal provisions that will ensure local surveillance follows the law to the latter to avoid intrusion of public privacy. Besides, the need to consider the rights of the public legally ascribed under the constitution, there is a growing number of UAS use since 2002. Controlling the rise of these unmanned aircraft vehicles is crucial to enhance the objective of using UAS for the common good and minimize UAS automation risks to achieve the fundamental objective of NextGen. There is also a gap in acquisition, accountability, and approval of UAS integration into the NAS, therefore a need to assess the emerging technical, economic and legal challenges affecting the combination of unmanned aircraft vehicles into the public airspace through NextGen considering the global requirement regarding the humanitarian law.

Research Questions

The following research questions will guide this study:

RQ1. What are the ethical and policy requirements for integration of UAS into the NAS using the NextGen automated systems?

RQ2. What are the challenges of accommodating UAS into the civil airspace using the NextGen systems considering the nature of UAS prototype interface?

Research Objectives

The research aims to evaluate ethical issues that arise as a result of increasing use of unmanned aircraft vehicles in performing public and military missions. Such ethical issues include safety and privacy issues, and legal liabilities. More so, the study aims at creating a connection between the current professional code of conduct and the use of UAS through NextGEN. Besides addressing the ethical issues and professional code of conduct, the study will also explore technical details regarding the design and functionality of NextGen automated systems. More so, the paper will look into the current legal requirements set by FAA on the use of UAS in the national airspace.

Significance of the Research

The study will contribute significantly to the policy practice involving the rapid innovation of unmanned Aircraft vehicles and their use in the civil airspace using the NextGen systems. The study also addresses the emerging challenges affecting the accommodation of UAS into the public sky contributing policy solution to the automation of UAS and proposes potential solutions that will contribute to the effectiveness of NextGen.

Literature Review

In this section, there will be a review of six scholar studies on unmanned systems to get an insight into the policy formulation, implementation, and implication on the integration of the unmanned system into the civil airspace through NextGen systems. The articles to be reviewed include Gupta et al. (2013), Hackenberg (2016), Jansen (2015), Lee (2016) and Sullivan (2017) because they focused on policy, privacy and privacy concerns during UAS integration process using NextGen automated Systems.

Elias (2012) research focuses on unmanned system policy consideration by the Congress due to increased use of UAS. The law requires that FAA play a regulatory role in ensuring proper tests are conducted before launching the unmanned system into the national airspace system. Elias (2012) study is intensive because it provides relevant policy details regarding current FAA policy standards in regulating manufacture and integration of unmanned systems. He gives detail information on the performance of the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act in addressing safety concerns and minimizing potential risks of using the unmanned system. The ultimate goal of Congress has been reinforcing the integration of the unmanned system into the civil space through NextGen; Elias in his study provides a detailed account of the Congress policy efforts since 2003 to control the manufacture and applicability of UAS in the NAS through NextGen.

Gupta et al. (2013) discuss unmanned aircraft system as a growing technology that has a direct implication on warfare and public application. Gupta et al. (...