Volumization and Inverse Volumization for Low-Altitude Airspace Geofencing

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-2383.vid The number of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) operations is expected to increase dramatically with emerging applications in package delivery, search and rescue, recreation, photography, and surveillance. UAS Traffic Management (UTM) has been proposed to safely and efficiently manage low-altitude airspace. Airspace geofencing is a key capability for safe flight. Geofenced airspace volumes can be allocated to safely contain compatible UAS flight operations within a fly-zone (keep-in geofence) and assure avoidance of no-fly zones (keep-out geofences). This paper proposes operational volumization and inverse volumization algorithms to support airspace geofence management for UTM. Layered polygon geofence volumes with constant-altitude floors and ceilings enclose user-input waypoint-based flight plans, and a family of conflict-free flight planning solutions is proposed for inverse volumization. Monte Carlo simulations statistically validate our geofencing algorithms and identify corner cases.