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UMass Amherst’s CASA, Bell, Xwing and Textron Systems Developing an Unmanned Aircraft Demonstration for NASA in 2020
AMHERST, Mass. – The Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is part of a team including Bell, Xwing and Textron Systems, that recently announced a cooperative agreement with NASA to conduct an unmanned aircraft flight demonstration expected in 2020.
The unmanned aircraft to be used for the demonstration is a tail-sitting electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle called the Autonomous Pod Transport 70 (APT70). The vehicle can reach speeds of more than 100 miles per hour and has a baseline payload capability of 70 pounds. Commercial transport missions envisioned for this aircraft include medical, law enforcement/parapublic and offshore missions. Integrating the APT70 safely into the National Airspace System (NAS) requires the development and integration of Command and Control (C2C), Detect and Avoid (DAA) and weather avoidance technologies. These will be provided by Textron Systems, XWing and CASA respectively.
“CASA is excited to collaborate with Bell on the integration of low-altitude weather information into unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) operations,” says Apoorva Bajaj, CASA’s innovation manager. “Precise information on location, timing and severity of thunderstorm activity, wind and rain will help maximize the time UAS operations can be safely conducted.”
CASA has developed the City Warn end-to-end severe weather notification system to integrate data from weather radars, ground sensors and forecast models and produce geo-targeted, timely alerts for hundreds of emergency responders and other stakeholders in the North Texas area. In this demonstration project, the City Warn platform will be adapted to deliver weather avoidance guidance to operators of manned and unmanned vehicles in the lowest parts of the atmosphere.
“This is a great opportunity for CASA to transition our targeted warning systems into commercial use for a hot new market. We’ll also bring to the table years of experience demonstrating new technologies with users in live environments,” says Brenda J. Philips, CASA’s co-director.
The Engineering Research Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) was founded in 2003 by the National Science Foundation to bring together engineers, computer scientists, meteorologists and social scientists in a $40 million, 10-year project to revolutionize the way we prepare and respond to severe weather. Since 2013, CASA has operated a unique gap-filling radar network in North Texas that provides real-time severe weather alerts to emergency responders, storm water managers, airport managers and the general public. Headquartered at UMass Amherst, CASA works collaboratively with the National Weather Service, academic partners such as Colorado State University and University of Oklahoma and industry partners that license CASA technologies and bring them to market. Since 2010, the work of CASA has been supported by the Jerome M. Paros Fund for Measurement and Environmental Sciences Research.