Geofencing in Low Altitude Airspace

As numerous and diverse unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are given permission to enter the airspace, increasingly capable UAS Traffic Management (UTM) and safety systems will be needed. A key component of UTM is the presence of assured geofence systems on-board each UAS. Geofences partition the airspace into usable airspace (keep-in geofences) and no fly zones (keep-out geofences). Each geofence consists of vertical altitude and horizontal boundaries. Vertical limits are specified as a minimum altitude and maximum altitude for the entire geofence. Horizontal limits are specified as a polygon with (x, y) vertex coordinates relative to a local origin. Each UAS with a geofencing system considers a single keep-in geofence and any number of keep-out geofences. To enforce geofence boundaries, a geofence system monitors UAS position with respect to geofence boundaries, determines if the UAS is violating or is in danger of violating the geofence, and responds according to geofence violation status.

Safe flight zone graphic

Publications:

  • Stevens, Mia N., Hossein Rastgoftar, and Ella M. Atkins. “Geofence Boundary Violation Detection in 3D Using Triangle Weight Characterization with Adjacency.” Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems (2018): 1-12.
  • Stevens, Mia N., and Ella M. Atkins. “Layered geofences in complex airspace environments.” 2018 Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference. 2018.
  • Stevens, Mia N., and Ella M. Atkins. “Geofencing in Immediate Reaches Airspace for Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management.” 2018 AIAA Information Systems-AIAA Infotech@ Aerospace. 2018. 2140.
  • Stevens, Mia N., Hossein Rastgoftar, and Ella M. Atkins. “Specification and evaluation of geofence boundary violation detection algorithms.” Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS), 2017 International Conference on. IEEE, 2017.
  • Stevens, Mia N., and Ella M. Atkins. “Multi-Mode Guidance for an Independent Multicopter Geofencing System.” Proceedings of the 16th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations Conference, Washington, D.C., USA. 2016.
  • Stevens, Mia N., Brandon Coloe, and Ella M. Atkins. “Platform-Independent Geofencing for Low Altitude UAS Operations.” Proceedings of the 15th AIAA Aviation Technology Integration, and Operations Conference, Dallas, TX, USA. 2015.