Toward a UAS Handling Qualities Specification: Development of UAS-Specific MTEs

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are becoming more prominent in the airspace and offer solutions to the limitations of manned rotorcraft. The ability to perform autonomous and/or remotely piloted tasks make them popular for both private and public use. As UAS become commonplace, the need to define handling qualities requirements is a critical task. This paper builds upon previous work towards a VTOL-UAS handling qualities framework to propose two UASspecific maneuvers along with mission-appropriate performance specifications. Flight test results on the University of Portland hexacopter (Group 1 UAS) were collected to validate performance specifications for both the UAS-specific maneuvers and Froude-scaled ADS-33E-PRF mission task elements. A new performance metric based on Froude dynamic scaling of the ADS-33E-PRF attitude bandwidth metric was also developed. This Froude-scaled Level 1 attitude bandwidth criteria was then evaluated in flight test on the UP Hexacopter as a predictive criterion for Level 1 MTE performance. The Synergy 626, a single main rotor helicopter Group 1 UAS, was used to further validate the MTE performance specifications and the scaled attitude bandwidth results, showing this work is applicable beyond multirotor configurations. The key outcomes of the work are the proposed UAS-specific maneuvers, the validation of performance specifications, and validation of the Froude-scaled ADS-33E-PRF Level 1 attitude bandwidth metric as a predictive metric.