NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The U.S. Air Force's F-16D Automatic Collision Avoidance Technology (ACAT) aircraft takes off from Edwards Air Force Base on a flight originating from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. NASA Dryden is working with the Air Force Research Laboratory in the ACAT Fighter Risk Reduction Project to develop collision avoidance technologies for fighter/attack aircraft that would reduce the risk of ground and mid-air collisions. (NASA photo/Tom Tschida) NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., is working with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory to develop collision avoidance technologies for fighter/attack aircraft that would reduce the risk of ground and mid-air collisions in the Fighter Risk Reduction Project.

The project is the first flight research effort being conducted under the Automatic Collision Avoidance Technology program of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. The system is designed by the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company of Ft. Worth, Texas.

NASA Dryden is leading the project's integrated test team, which is responsible for the technical content of test and evaluation, maintenance of the Air Force F-16D test aircraft, project management and engineering services, and providing the project's chief pilot.

"Over the years, we've ended up developing three overarching requirements, which are our primary goals," says Dryden's Mark Skoog, the project's test director. "They're summarized in the phrase: do no harm, do not interfere, and prevent collisions."

"First of all, we want to make sure that this system won't do any harm to our aircrew or to our project aircraft by corrupting existing aircraft systems on the F-16," Skoog says.

"Secondly, we've got to make sure that we are developing a system that won't interfere with the normal operations of aircraft that may one day use this system. For example, aircraft are conducting missions today, like flying low through canyons to avoid radar. We don't want to put a system on that would inhibit them from accomplishing such missions by causing the aircraft to pull up when the pilot needs to keep it low."

"And finally," Skoog says, "after we're able to accomplish those two requirements, we then attempt to prevent collisions. So, we have a very different approach than one would think of in going about solving this problem."

The program is directly funded by the Department of Defense through the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the laboratory is reimbursing NASA for its services under an agreement with Dryden.

The research laboratory’s Air Vehicles Directorate, the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards, and NASA Dryden have been jointly developing automatic collision avoidance technologies for over 20 years. The Air Force’s Advanced Fighter Technology Integration F-16 program's Joint Test Force was based at Dryden for 16 years, from 1982 to 1998.

Gray Creech
NASA Dryden Flight Research Center