Development of a health monitoring system for unmanned aerial systems

For an unmanned aerial system (UAS) to work seamlessly within the national airspace (NAS), it must have a way to sense and avoid any obstacles autonomously. This paper describes a monitoring system that has the ability to monitor in real-time both the hardware and software components of the UAS during flight operations and execute any actions that are necessary to handle or prevent any issues that might occur during an encounter with an obstacle as well as during normal flight. The system was implemented and all its capabilities were thoroughly tested using software-in-the-loop (SWIL) flight simulations with real-time sensor data. The results from these tests demonstrated the system's capabilities to identify a component in a critical state, a software problem, or an environmental issue and handle it in order to maintain the Airborne Sense and Avoid (ABSAA) system's full capability.