Development of a Mobile Information Display System for UAS Operations in North Dakota

The University of North Dakota is developing airspace within the state of North Dakota where unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) can be flown without an on-board sense and avoid system or temporary flight restrictions. The John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, with funding from the United States Air Force, is developing a mobile ground-based radar system to detect low observable aircraft and to display the information to the UAS operator using a novel visualization system. The only stated desirable feature was that the visualization system use NATO/APA icons as applicable. The system integrates aircraft position data from Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B), ground based radar, telemetry data from Global Positioning System (GPS) equipped UASs, and sources for weather information relevant to the monitored airspace. As the data is accumulated it is fused and multicast to the Information Display Systems (IDSs) where it is displayed on two types of high-resolution wide-screen IDSs. The two types of IDSs include a Range Control Center Information Display System (RCC IDS) and a Ground Observer Information Display System (GO IDS). This paper focuses on the developed IDSs and on the simulation system used to test the IDSs.