{"id":422481,"date":"2026-05-07T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/?p=993414"},"modified":"2026-05-07T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T10:00:00","slug":"cornell-students-aid-nasa-with-drone-safety-in-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=422481","title":{"rendered":"Cornell Students Aid NASA with Drone Safety in Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"
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6 min read<\/p>\n

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Students from Cornell University are shown working with an air transportation management tool in which a real drone flying over a remote field thinks its operating with imaginary drones flying in a simulated urban environment. Their work is the result of a NASA grant that is part of the agency’s University Student Research Challenge.<\/div>\n
Cornell University \/ Mehrnaz Sabet<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A team of Cornell University students are turning heads within industry and the federal government with the results of their research into creating a national air transportation management system in which thousands of drones could safely operate together.<\/p>\n

NASA is sponsoring their work through the University Student Research Challenge<\/a> (USRC), which provides grants to college students interested in helping the agency realize its aeronautical research goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking at new traffic management systems for drones is not new,\u201d said Mehrnaz Sabet, a doctoral student in the field of information science who serves as principal investigator on the grant and leads the Cornell team. \u201cIn fact, NASA has led that effort for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, through USRC, NASA is giving Sabet and her team the chance to offer up innovative approaches to drone safety by managing their movements in the air, taking advantage of their young minds and fresh ideas.<\/p>\n

The ultimate benefit of Cornell\u2019s research in this area is the full realization of advanced air mobility<\/a>, an area of industry focus that includes everything from urban flying taxis, more robust disaster response aircraft, and hot fresh pizza delivered right to your door.<\/p>\n

The work also underscores the value NASA places on maturing cutting-edge technologies and helping to develop its future workforce through initiatives like USRC.<\/p>\n

\u201cSabet and her team have demonstrated versatile skills involving software, algorithms, hardware, sensors development, laboratory tests, simulations, and actual flight tests \u2013 a rare combination,\u201d said Parimal Koperdekar, acting director of NASA\u2019s Airspace Operations and Safety Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Flying drones like we drive<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Currently, drone operators must file plans that fully describes the intended flight path of the drone with a traffic management service. Those plans are checked with others to ensure there will be no collisions \u2013 what Sabet calls strategic deconfliction.<\/p>\n

The challenge is that today\u2019s air traffic management system is limited in its ability to handle the growing number of aircraft taking to the sky. Adding thousands of drones to the mix during the coming years risks over burdening the system, Sabet said.<\/p>\n

What is needed in the air is essentially what we have on the ground \u2013 where millions of people drive on a road every day, she said.<\/p>\n

As a driver you might know your whole \u201ctrajectory,\u201d or the path you\u2019d follow to reach your destination. But you would never coordinate your plan with every other driver on the road before you leave. Instead, traffic laws and infrastructure such as stop lights and traffic signs allow you to deconflict with other cars as you go.<\/p>\n

Drone operators will still have to file flight plans saying where they intend to go, but the idea is to incorporate that car-like flexibility into drone operating systems, allowing them to be adaptable during their journeys.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to ensure all these different types of drones can tactically deconflict with each other so that it is safe for them to operate like cars do on the ground. And that missing piece \u2013 tactical deconfliction \u2013 is at the center of our project,\u201d Sabet said.<\/p>\n

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Mehrnaz Sabet, a doctoral candidate in the field of information science at Cornell University, leads a student team testing technologies used in a drone traffic management system under a grant from NASA’s University Student Research Challenge, She is seen during a drone traffic simulation exercise taking place in a rural field.<\/div>\n
Cornell University<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Two worlds joined<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The key to the Cornell team\u2019s research is the notion of integrating a simulated world with the real one to test and demonstrate how drones can learn to adapt to potentially hazardous conditions and make necessary corrections in their flight path on their own.<\/p>\n

Knowing they could not go out and fly 100 drones at the same time to test their ideas for tactical deconfliction, the students decided to create an entirely virtual urban world to evaluate different high-volume traffic models, separation algorithms, and related data.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first year of the project went into adapting and scaling that simulation engine and it all went very well,\u201d Sabet said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t want to stick to a simulation. We wanted to see how the simulation translated to the real world, which mattered more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still hampered by the limitations of how many drones they could operate and where they could fly \u2013 not many and basically in the middle of nowhere \u2013 they sought the best of both worlds, real and imagined.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we wound up doing was to embed the simulation into a real drone, so the drone thought it was flying in a dense urban environment although it was actually flying out in an open field where there wasn\u2019t a real city in sight,\u201d Sabet said.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/figure>
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A drone designed and built by Cornell University students hovers over an open field during a test of air traffic management system technologies in which the drone “thinks” its flying within an urban environment. The goal is to prove a system in which drones can safely react to unforeseen events and avoid each other in the sky without human intervention.<\/div>\n
Cornell University<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n

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Several drones appear in a Cornell University computer graphic simulation of an urban environment in which an air traffic management system is tested to show how the drones can safely alter course on their own to avoid colliding.<\/div>\n
Cornell University<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n
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