TULSA, Okla. – On a sunny, slightly windy day in March, just behind Osage Casinos’ central offices, a drone consortium gathered at Osage LLC’s Skyway 36 to test drone safety systems.
OSU’s Aerospace Institute for Research and Education (OAIRE), as well as an aviation electronics company called uAvionix, brought their drones for testing. They tested “sense and avoid” technology as well as connectivity software able to switch between radio tower communications, cell tower or LTE, and satellite communications as often as needed to ensure drones can sense and avoid whatever may be in their path, no matter how remote the flying location.
Skyway 36 is a perfect location for testing, due to its proximity to downtown Tulsa.
“Skyway 36 is that connecting droneport, between those two worlds,” said Dr. Jamey D. Jacob, the executive director of OAIRE. She said there is a national need for drone testing sites that can allow drone companies to test safety and operations, not only in rural environments but also in urban areas like Tulsa to ultimately be ready for drone deliveries, whether commercial packages or first responder supplies.
Joining OAIRE and uAvionix was Droneport Network, Tulsa Innovation Labs and others. Together they watched a mid-sized drone fly beyond the operating pilot’s line of sight and demonstrate the ability to sense and avoid any obstacles.
“It’s Osage LLC,” said Berbon Hamilton, “we’re making money,” he said of the Osage LLC project called Skyway 36. Hamilton joined with his business partners who see a huge value in testing drones. Business is good, Skyway 36 has recently booked a new lessee, a European company called WindShape that will build a weather-simulating structure in which drones can ensure operations, no matter the level of wind or storm.
A new addition to Oklahoma’s drone corridor, a European-based company called WindShape, will build a state-of-the-art drone testing facility at Skyway 36. In addition to making money for the tribe via expansion into a top research and development area of the aviation sector, Skyway 36 is partnering with leading organizations working to establish safety in sense and avoid systems, a critical technology area in avoiding crashes in increasingly crowded modern airspace.
uAvionix is a leader in sense and avoid technology, and they are tightly teamed up with the consortium that tests and leases at Skyway 36. uAvionix is one of only five organizations that the Federal Aviation Administration allows to operate drones beyond the line of sight. The FAA did so because the company combines multiple detection mechanisms to provide a failsafe system for sensing and avoiding what’s in the airspace. They tested this system at Skyway 36, along with the OAIRE consortium, because the Osage-managed land has the permit to allow drone testing above 200 feet.
Pilot and researcher AJ Burba of OAIRE was excited to see everyone out preparing for the test flight, and he said the range for the drone delivery will be state-wide. He described the purpose of the test flight at Skyway 36 and what it means, saying, “We’re combining all these different detection devices for manned aircraft and piping it all into one central system that, in this case, an electronic observer can watch, then advise the pilot, ‘hey, you have [such-and-such] aircraft coming in at said feet,’ and then avoid it. We’re showing what our range will eventually have, across most of Oklahoma, from Stillwater to Tulsa up to Pawhuska.”
An Osage visual observer, Braden Revard, stood at the site northward on top of a ridge, which would be as far as the drone would travel that day. His role was to be part of the team of people and technologies watching the drone, ensuring that it did not collide with anything.
Drew Clark of uAvionix coordinated the launch, advising the attendees to help by observing and if they saw anything worrisome to cry “knock it off, knock it off, knock it off!” and the drone would immediately land when the pilot heard the cry and indicated an emergency return and landing. Clark described how the drone connectivity works, checking which network is best to connect to every eighth of a second, to ensure the aircraft is always in communication and coordination with its remote pilot, flying it from the ground control station.
Clark said, “This aircraft can fly through the air, and whichever ground station its closest to, it can connect to that one.” Additionally, via the drone’s link executive management system, the drone is also able to connect to satellite communications, LTE cell phone networks, and radio. The remote flying setup is called the command and control system, or C2, and it allows pilots to actually fly the drone remotely, not just across mid-America or the state of Oklahoma, but the entire world. uAvionix worked with the Choctaw Nation to develop the C2 remote flying system.
“We built the system with command and control, detect and avoid, and all these different features, and the FAA would intentionally start launching manned aircraft to intrude upon us to make sure we could see them, avoid them,” said Clark, explaining how safe and reliable the detect and avoidance program has proven to be.
In order to sense and avoid whatever may be in the air, whether birds or plans, the drone uses radar with automated sense and avoid steering, as well as multiple cameras, and ground control stations with radios used to triangulate the position of both the drone, and whatever else is in the air. They use a radio frequency called C-BAND to communicate, which is a designated broadcast wavelength that is set aside for aviation drone use. This communication system is configurable for satellite communications, or any other fallback system the connectivity needs to keep communication and monitoring lines open.
At Skyway 36, the OAIRE consortium is looking to develop applications for drones as first responders, so dispatchers can punch a button and deliver blood to medical workers working at the site of an emergency, for example. The Wahzhazhe Health Center could theoretically utilize the payloads on the drone for medication home delivery, for example.
James E. Spencer Jr., the director of OAIRE’s LaunchPad Center for Advanced Air Mobility, is excited to see the industry growing to provide more jobs, better technology, and safety-centered development for drone applications. “I think the powers that be recognize this is an inflection point … in this new era, we have the democratization of aircraft, and we have individuals who can pilot vehicles, and they’re trying to figure out how to [fit that] within the pilot licensing paradigm.” Of Skyway 36’s role, Spencer said, “With the FAA waivers [on airspace usage, and flying beyond line-of-sight], it makes it possible to do development [here], which they otherwise could not do, and so that’s why it is very important.”
Jacob, who works closely with Spencer, commented that the land where the Osage meets Tulsa is a critical location that gives testing entities an opportunity to scale away from rural testing into more safety-critical city environments, too. He said that former Assistant Principal Chief Raymond Red Corn had the idea to enter a competition for FAA test sites eight years ago.
“What I was really excited about,” said Jacob, “was how downtown Tulsa is just right there, and you’ve got all the Osage Nation, with its low[er]-risk airspace, over there. It’s very different from the Choctaw Nation, where they have their test site in the middle of nowhere. This is the best of both worlds, because you’ve got all this lower-risk airspace over here, and then you can actually do what is intended at the end of the day, which is deliver to the populations,” he said.
Oklahoma is poised to be a leader in drone development. “We have another company we’re working with,” said Jacob. “[They’re] taking all the fused data in and using the NASA algorithm to determine what the collision probability is. So, they have developed this algorithm, and it’s an Oklahoma company that has licensed it, so they’re the exclusive developer. They’re our additional partner on this to bring that in,” he said. “So, as you’re flying the vehicle and [the sensing systems] say, ‘oh, there’s another aircraft out here’ the vehicle on board says, ‘ok, what’s the probability, based on that vehicle’s current trajectory, of a collision,’ and if there is one, how do we de-conflict that. And how does the drone then take charge, and say, ‘I’m going to go this route instead, to make sure I don’t hit.’”
The Osage LLC also stands to make money from the testing, drone usage and applications, including delivery if they decide to purchase and operate drones.
