Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are currently being used primarily for military applications, but with the evolution of avionics technology, a huge market in civil applications is emerging. However, most civil applications require UAS to access non-segregated airspace. Current use limitations of non-segregated airspace make it extremely difficult to extensively evaluate operational concepts and mission profiles. Using real flights to test the complete UAS mission infrastructure involves costs and risks. Therefore, simulators must be used prior to real flight campaigns to test and validate UAS components and must take into account all the actors involved in the non-segregated airspace. This paper describes the development of a Software-in-the-Loop simulator called ISIS+ to evaluate the automated operations of UAS in non-segregated airspace and to test new software components of the UAS with other avionics components. The ISIS+ simulator provides a realistic simulation environment in which the UAS software components can be developed under real air traffic scenarios while taking into account all the UAS's peculiarities. The UAS is integrated with eDEP, an air traffic simulation environment, in order to explore the UAS behavior, conflicting traffic and air traffic controllers' requests with the airspace actors. The integration is carried out using ADS-B messages and considers the UAS as an active actor in the networked environment to simulate future SESAR and NextGen scenarios.

Peer Reviewed