Military

Lockheed Martin Displays UAV ATM System

By Tish Drake | August 25, 2008
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A team led by Lockheed Martin demonstrated an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Airspace Management System (UAMS), which the company said deconflicts flight paths of multiple, small UAVs with limited on-board sensors, communications and processing resources. Lockheed Martin said the system uses a ground-based airspace manager and UAV-based software agents to distribute the problem of airspace management. It separates deconfliction into three activities: maintaining situational awareness and common, relevant operating picture; detecting conflict; and modifying flights paths. The system performs these activities on a centralized server or distributes them to the UAVs. UAMS also uses sensor input to detect and react to obstacles, giving the UAV a "see-and-avoid" capability.

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