An Assessment of Unmanned Aircraft System Operations with the Extensible Trajectory Optimization Library

Abstract

In the not too distant future, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) will be a source of economic power in urban environments. These systems will be used for package delivery, building inspections, filming, and many other tasks. However, economic benefits should not outweigh public safety. These systems must not collide into buildings, and they must maintain a safe separation distance from neighboring systems. In other words, UAS operations should be assessed for safety. This paper assesses how safety requirements in the urban environment influence UAS operations. It presents a novel way of performing this assessment by using the Extensible Trajectory Optimization Library (ETOL) to continuously solve a vehicle guidance problem (VGP) in a multi-agent robot simulator. This paper introduces the common structure of a VGP, along with a VGP formulation for a UAS in an urban environment. In addition, a platform for safety assessments is presented, along with recommendations for improving the safety of UAS operations.