Xwing is developing a certifiable Mission Management System (MMS) to enable safe and resilient autonomous operations. The goal of the MMS is to provide an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) with the required decision making and trajectory planning capabilities that would enable it to be self-directed and self-sufficient. The MMS continuously monitors for off-nominal conditions and initiates appropriate mitigating actions and trajectory changes, providing the UAS with a high degree of resilience to off-nominal conditions. This proposal aims to develop the onboard real-time trajectory generation capability and associated decision making elements within Xwing’s MMS. Specifically, this proposal will focus on trajectory generation for (a) autonomous airborne collision avoidance consistent with any available Detect and Avoid Regulations, (b) emergency landing under total loss of thrust, and (c) associated decision making required to trigger the computation and execution of these trajectories/mission plans in a timely manner. These capabilities play a key role in enabling autonomous operations of new air travel modalities such as Urban Air Mobility and Regional Air Mobility. A key emphasis of this proposal is the development of these capabilities with the ultimate aim of being certified for use on Xwing’s commercial autonomous air cargo operations.

Advanced Air Mobility Project: The proposed trajectory generation for autonomous collision avoidance and emergency landing can be directly utilized within the context of Urban and Regional Air Mobility operations to enable these aircraft to operate in a self-directed and self-sufficient manner. The proposed work also aligns well under System Wide Safety project’s research involving emerging, unpiloted aircraft and urban operations, thus accelerating the development of large commercially viable unmanned aircraft systems.

Widespread acceptance of proposed emergency planning capability by avionic manufacturers can reduce aviation accidents due to loss of thrust (e.g. US Airways 1549 water landing on the Hudson) This proposal can pave the way towards development of standards required for the certification of onboard real-time trajectory generation and decision making systems.