Airline Operational Control (AOC)/UAS Ground Control Station (GCS) Collaboration

We propose to form a network and a set of tools that will create a shared situation awareness with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Ground Control Stations (GCSs) and airline dispatchers at Airline Operations Centers (AOCs). Our solution is motivated by the Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) community in commercial aviation, where the CDMnet was created back in 1997 to facilitate collaboration between airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The CDMnet continues to exist today to allow airlines to collaborate on Traffic Flow Management (TFM) decisions that are made by airlines and FAA Air Traffic Service Providers (ATSPs) every day. Today, with the introduction of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) flying in the National Airspace System (NAS), there is a need for collaboration between UAS, ATSP, and AOCs in UAS Traffic Management (UTM) in order to share airspace resources. Thus, the focus of this SBIR effort is to build a network that allows UAS GCSs to share information and collaborate with airline AOCs in order to create a shared situation awareness and to share and coordinate NAS airspace resources.