F-35 Begins Collision Avoidance Tests As UK Joins Auto-ICAS Study19 Nov 2018 Guy Norris [text from:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/warship ... ml#p691242 ]
Spurred on by the success of the Automatic Ground Collision Avoidance System (Auto-GCAS) in saving lives and aircraft on its F-16 fleet, the U.S. Air Force has begun flight tests of the safety system on the F-35A as part of efforts to fast-track its introduction into the Joint Strike Fighter fleet as early as mid-2019.
The initial flight-test phase, which got underway at Edwards AFB, California, on Oct. 31, will verify noninterference of Auto-GCAS with other aircraft systems and evaluate overall performance of the algorithms in the safety system. Seven flights had been conducted as of Nov. 14.
Collision Avoidance ----- Flight tests of Auto-GCAS started on the F-35A at Edwards AFB
----- Ground-collision protection to be introduced on U.S. Air Force F-35s beginning in 2019
----- U.S.-UK joint study will pave the way for Auto-ICAS on the F-35 in the 2020s
The first flight-test phase is due to be completed by the end of November and, depending on results, will be followed by a second round starting in January and running through April. “The F-35A should field with Auto-GCAS in June, so it’s really on the fast track,” says Mark Wilkins, subject-matter expert at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for the Automatic Collision Avoidance Technology (ACAT) program under which Auto-GCAS was developed.
Moves to introduce Auto-GCAS on the F-35 follow the success of the system on the Air Force F-16 fleet. Since it was first introduced on the Block 40/50 version of the F-16 in late 2014, the system has been credited with saving eight lives and seven aircraft. Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), NASA and Lockheed Martin, the Auto-GCAS system is designed to prevent fighter/attack aircraft from crashes due to controlled-flight-into-terrain incidents.
Algorithms in the system continuously compare the aircraft’s trajectory against a terrain profile generated from an onboard digital terrain elevation data unit. If the predicted trajectory touches the terrain and the system calculates the aircraft is in imminent danger of collision, it executes a last-minute automatic recovery maneuver. The system is designed to protect against accidents caused primarily by pilot disorientation or temporary incapacity due to high G forces.
Initial flight tests have gone well, says Wilkins, and Auto-GCAS activations, in which the system was deliberately initiated to command a pull-up maneuver, were performed on the first sortie. Once the trajectory-prediction algorithm at the heart of the Auto-GCAS has been tuned to the F-35’s flight control and navigation systems, and the safety device cleared for integration, the first F-35As will be equipped starting next summer, with follow-on installations rolling into the F-35B and F-35C versions, respectively.
Testing of Auto-GCAS for the F-35 comes as the AFRL, Air Force, Lockheed Martin and the UK’s Defense Science & Technology Labs have joined forces to study development of the follow-on Automatic Integrated Collision Avoidance System (Auto-ICAS) for the Joint Strike Fighter. The effort, which will be led by Lockheed Martin, is focused initially on surveying the F-35’s standard sensor suite to “see what’s available to us for air-to-air capability,” says Wilkins.
Auto-ICAS, which was successfully tested in an F-16 in 2017, combines the ground collision avoidance system with an Automatic Air Collision Avoidance System (Auto-ACAS), which was developed to prevent midair collisions. Auto-ACAS is focused on providing extra safety in the highly dynamic Air Combat Maneuvering training environment in which it calculates future aircraft trajectories to determine if an automatic maneuver is required to avoid an imminent midair collision.
The combined Auto-ICAS prioritizes ground collision functions while making the Auto-ACAS “terrain aware.” This prevents air collision avoidance maneuvers that would then force the aircraft toward the ground which, in turn, would require Auto-GCAS to trigger a maneuver.
In the F-16, the Auto-ACAS element of the ICAS function is hosted in the ASQ-T50(V)1 P5 wingtip-mounted air combat maneuvering instrument training pod. Although at one stage Lockheed Martin studied installing a P5 pod in the weapons bay, the F-35 is expected to utilize other aspects of the aircraft’s integrated sensor and datalink suite to achieve the same overall result.
In response to impetus from the Air Force as well as the F-35 Joint Program Office, the AFRL is working to validate the requirement for an automatic integrated collision avoidance system on the aircraft. The UK’s interest is initially driven by the near-term requirement for a collision warning system for operating in the crowded airspace in and around the British Isles. However, a second phase would focus on development of a fully integrated Auto-ICAS with air-to-air and ground collision prevention capability.
Although the sensor study is expected to be completed by mid-2019, the relative complexity of integrating Auto-ICAS into the F-35 means the system is unlikely to be fielded until late into the Block 4 standard deliveries around 2023-24."
Source: http://aviationweek.com/combat-aircraft ... icas-study 
17 Nov 2018, 00:28
