Research and Brief Analysis of Unmanned Aircraft Terminal Area Encounter Dataset

As the research on the integration of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) into the national airspace progresses, modeling the encounters between UASs and manned aircraft in airport terminal areas has become a crucial issue to address the coexistence of manned and unmanned operations and the development of UAS onboard detection and avoidance systems. The acquisition and analysis of real flight test data are essential technical means for establishing empirical models. In light of this problem, this paper analyzes publicly available UAS airport terminal area encounter data from the Lincoln Laboratory in the United States. The primary focus of this study is on the distribution of the closest points of approach (CPAs) and encounter altitudes between manned and unmanned aircraft, along with an analysis of the flight parameters of the encounter trajectories. The analytical methodology presented in this paper lays the groundwork for the subsequent development of predictive models for manned-unmanned encounters in airport terminal areas.