(Source: www.ainonline.com)
Alenia Aermacchi reported the first successful flight tests of an automatic collision avoidance system for UAVs that does not rely on the cooperation of the conflicting traffic (such as an aircraft that is not equipped or using a transponder). The flight test formed part of ongoing trials of the midair collision avoidance system (MIDCAS) sponsored by the European Defence Agency. Alenia Aermacchi used its Sky-Y medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV demonstrator for the flight tests.
They took place over recent weeks from Grazzanise airbase, and involved one of Alenia Aermacchi’s C-27J airlifters, which was intentionally flown close to the Sky-Y at different altitudes and from different directions. The closest that the two aircraft came was 150 meters. The Sky-Y was equipped with radio, electro-optical, infrared and radars provided by the MIDCAS consortium, which comprises Airbus D&S, ESG, Indra, Saab, Sagem, Selex-ES and Thales, as well as Alenia Aermacchi. The countries that are participating in the MIDCAS project are France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Spain.
Alenia Aermacchi said that the flight tests helped to provide one of the key missing pieces for a full integration of unmanned aircraft in the civil airspace and ultimately their total commercial and institutional exploitation. Its sister company Selex-ES coordinated the development of the “sense-and-avoid” sensor system. One objective of the tests is to determine the best combination of sensors to achieve this objective.
The Italian company noted that this flight test marks the latest “first” achieved by its two UAV demonstrators. The Sky-Y previously became the first European MALE UAV to fly with a diesel engine (2007), and the first from anywhere to fly from a civil airport (2011). It also set an endurance record for a 1,000-kg-plus European UAV of eight hours (2008). Meanwhile, the company’s smaller Sky-X demonstrator was Europe’s first 1,000-kg-plus UAV when it made its maiden flight in 2005, and was the first to make automatic approaches to a tanker aircraft (2008).
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