em-pairing-geospatial

Motivation
The continuing integration of unmanned aerial system operations into the National Airspace System requires new or updated regulations, policies, and technologies to maintain safety and enable efficient use of the airspace. Simulation-based methods have routinely been used as part of the development of aviation safety systems or to inform regulations.

Use of Simulations
Monte Carlo safety simulations have long been a key capability used by the aviation regulators to develop, assess, and certify aircraft conflict avoidance systems that mitigate the risk of airborne collisions. These simulations and their associated models have been used to characterize the performance of surveillance systems, assess the behavior of conflict avoidance algorithms, and estimate overall system collision risk performance. Specifically, Monte Carlo simulations help evaluate systems that enable aircraft to not operate so close to each other other as to create a collision hazard, in accordance with 14 CFR § 91.111.

Encounter models are key to accurate Monte Carlo simulations, as the models are sampled to produce representative trajectories that are paired to create feasible encounters between aircraft. These encounters are then often assessed in a fast-time simulation. This repository takes independent trajectories as input and outputs paired aircraft encounters.