NASA seeks to enable normalized operations of large, remotely piloted vehicles to increasingly autonomous-piloted aircraft operations in the NAS.
This work involves collaborating with industry and the Federal Aviation Administration to develop a research roadmap and concept of operations and identify future needs and technologies to enable the integration of increasingly autonomous operations in the NAS. These operations involve vehicles with greater range than typical UAM/AAM operations, utilizing pilots outside the vehicle and missions outside of urban areas.
NASA recently completed significant research in its Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the NAS Project to reduce technical barriers associated with integrating UAS into the airspace system. This project extends that research to large, remotely piloted vehicles, addressing the significant barriers that remain in enabling routine access of UAS into the airspace system.