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21 features of AlarisPro are based on aggregations of data and the safety- critical patterns they exhibit. Predictive analysis Beyond the dashboards and direct logging forms lie further capabilities that come under the umbrella of predictive maintenance. By viewing aggregate data on individual component replacements, for example, the company’s analytics can identify when a particular fuel pump or actuator is being swapped earlier than expected. It will then send out a notice to the manufacturers and end-users of that component to alert them of the potential issue, as well as the cause if one has been identified. “We had one instance last year where AlarisPro identified an early failure issue with a component on an expensive system, and sent an alert to our customers operating that aircraft,” Pucciarella says. “We adjusted the replacement time to well below the OEM’s recommended schedule, and notified all the customers. Many of them said we’d helped to prevent a potential loss of the aircraft and the expensive payloads they carry, with a total value of hundreds of thousands of dollars.” In addition to identifying where and why some high-cost UAVs have experienced performance issues, AlarisPro’s aggregate data can also inform OEMs on how they can best engineer their systems to support their end-users. “For example, we had one manufacturer that was focused on extending the flight time of one of its UAVs, because they thought they’d sell more of them that way,” Pucciarella says. “But a graph of their customers’ aggregate usage patterns showed us that their end-users weren’t flying them anywhere close to their existing endurance limit. By and large, only a third of the actual endurance mattered to them. “However, AlarisPro had also identified a noticeable trend in issues related to the command & control system for the aircraft. That motivated the company to look instead into the kind of support their customers actually wanted, enabling a ‘design, build and support’ aviation- type approach rather than the more automotive ‘design, build and forget’ business model.” The future Pucciarella and his team expect to continue expanding AlarisPro’s capabilities for the foreseeable future. “We’re delving deeper into machine learning and other advanced analytics,” he says. By enhancing the company’s predictive capabilities regarding component health and lifespans, Pucciarella hopes to go further than prototyping, to offering predictive safety reports on OEMs’ initial design concepts for entirely new UAVs. “We’ll be able to help them understand what might or might not work for UAVs being operated and maintained, without them needing to expend resources on prototyping and iterating sub-optimal systems,” he explains. “It will take a lot of data to predict that accurately, but if it means being able to help UAV manufacturers flesh-out their designs, match props to motors, spec their energy storage or control systems and so on, it’ll be worth it.” By the end of 2020 AlarisPro was rolling out customised fields and drop- down boxes for end-users, to better enable new equipment categories such as hot-swappable payloads or batteries, as well as metrics such as costs per kilowatt hour. Unmanned Systems Technology | December/January 2021 Anthony Pucciarella is a retired US Navy commander. Before starting his Navy career he received an aeronautical and astronautical engineering degree in 1988 from Ohio State University, later receiving an MBA from Loyola University Maryland’s Executive Program in 1996. He served six years as the airspace integration certification lead for the Navy’s Triton UAS programme and led the development of the programme’s safety case for Sense and Avoid (SAA). He has been active in ongoing rulemaking and standards development as a member of the FAA’s UAST and ASTM’s F-38 committees, including previous co-leadership of a workgroup supporting the larger Detect and Avoid group on FAA Special Committee 228. In 2014 he formed what would become AlarisPro, and his company has since continued to develop the software’s design and capabilities, and expand its user base. In addition to his professional UAS work, he is certified as an airline transport pilot, Part 107 RPIC, and is rated for aircraft ranging from the Boeing B-25 Mitchell bomber used in World War II to various business jets. Anthony Pucciarella