 Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) traffic management system (UTM)is necessary for automated safe and efficient low-altitude airspace operations. FAA has conceptualized the requirements on UTM protocols and components in the FAA's Concept of Operations for UTM report . In this paper, we explore applying rigorous formal reasoning on building and analyzing UTM protocols to (1) help provide high assurance on UTM protocols and (2) discover the strength and weaknesses of existing formal techniques. We propose the first mathematical formalization of FAA's notion of operation volumes that express aircraft intent in terms of 4D blocks of airspace and associated real-time deadlines. We present an executable prototype coordination protocolusing operation volumes, involving participating aircraft and an airspace manager . Next, we show how to use an ensemble of existing simulation and formal verification tools to analyze the protocol including (1) formally proving the safe separation and liveness properties of distributed coordination with the help of proof assistants Dione and Dafny, (2) using data-driven reachability analysiswith DryVR to ensure aircraft to follow operation volumes, and (3) evaluating the performance of the protocol in terms of workload and response delays with extensive simulations in ROS and Gazebo. We show that our analysiscan be applied on heterogeneous aircraft models . Our experiments also delineate the trade-off between performance and workload across different strategies for generating operation volumes .
The key concept for safe and efficient traffic management for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) is the notion of operation volume (OV). An OV is a 4-dimensional block of airspace and time, which can express an aircraft's intent, and can be used for planning, de-confliction, and traffic management. While there are several high-level simulators for UAS Traffic Management (UTM), we are lacking a framework for creating, manipulating, and reasoning about OVs for heterogeneous air vehicles . In this paper, we address this and present SkyTrakx -- a software toolkit for simulation and verification of UTM scenarios based on OVs. First, we illustrate a use case of SkyTrakx by presenting a specific air traffic coordination protocol. This protocol communicates OVs between participating aircraft and an airspace manager for traffic routing. We show how existing formal verification tools , Dafny and Dione, can assist in automatically checking key properties of the protocol. Second, we show how the OVs can be computed for heterogeneous air vehicles like quadcopters and fixed-wing aircraft using another verification technique, namely reachability analysis. Finally, we show that SkyTrakx can be used to simulate complex scenarios involving heterogeneous vehicles, for testing and performance evaluation in terms of workload and response delays analysis . Our experiments delineate the trade-off between performance and workload across different strategies for generating OVs .
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The key concept for safe and efficient traffic management for
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traffic management system (UTM)is necessary for automated safe and efficient low-altitude airspace operations. FAA has conceptualized the requirements on UTM protocols and components in the FAA's Concept of Operations for UTM report
is the notion of operation volume (OV). An OV is a 4-dimensional block of airspace and time, which can express an aircraft's intent, and can be used for planning, de-confliction, and traffic management. While there are several high-level simulators for UAS Traffic Management (UTM), we are lacking a framework for creating, manipulating, and reasoning about OVs for heterogeneous air vehicles
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explore applying rigorous formal reasoning on building and analyzing UTM protocols to (1) help provide high assurance on UTM protocols and (2) discover the strength and weaknesses of existing formal techniques. We propose the first mathematical formalization of FAA's notion of operation volumes that express aircraft intent in terms of 4D blocks of airspace and associated real-time deadlines. We present an executable prototype coordination protocolusing operation volumes, involving
address this and present SkyTrakx -- a software toolkit for simulation and verification of UTM scenarios based on OVs. First, we illustrate a use case of SkyTrakx by presenting a specific air traffic coordination protocol. This protocol communicates OVs between
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. Next, we show how to use an ensemble of existing simulation and
for traffic routing. We show how existing
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to analyze the protocol including (1) formally proving the safe separation and liveness properties of distributed coordination with the help of proof assistants Dione and Dafny, (2) using data-driven reachability analysiswith DryVR to ensure aircraft to follow operation volumes, and (3) evaluating the performance of the protocol
, Dafny and Dione, can assist in automatically checking key properties of the protocol. Second, we show how the OVs can be computed for heterogeneous air vehicles like quadcopters and fixed-wing aircraft using another verification technique, namely reachability analysis. Finally, we show that SkyTrakx can be used to simulate complex scenarios involving heterogeneous vehicles, for testing and performance evaluation
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with extensive simulations in ROS and Gazebo. We show that our analysiscan be applied on heterogeneous aircraft models
analysis
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operation volumes
OVs