CEAS EuroGNC 2026
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Challenges and Opportunities in UAS Mission and Contingency Management
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| Pranav Nagarajan |
Research Scientist, Dept. of Unmanned Aircraft, Institute of Flight Systems, Germany Aerospace Center (DLR), Braunschweig, Germany. | | Johann C. Dauer |
Head of Dept. Unmanned Aircraft, Institute of Flight Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Braunschweig, Germany. | | Florian Holzapfel |
Professor and Chair, Institute of Flight System Dynamics, Technical University of Munich, Garching, Germany. |
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| Abstract:
A key challenge in increasing the autonomy of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) lies in developing robust onboard decision-making capabilities within mission and contingency management (MCM) systems. Mission management enables the successful execution of operational goals while considering performance, safety, and regulatory constraints, whereas contingency management allows the UAS to handle plan failures, performance degradation, and system faults autonomously. Enhancing these capabilities can reduce reliance on human intervention and enable safe, scalable UAS operations. This paper systematically derives the key requirements for a highly autonomous MCM system. First, three distinct use cases - offshore wind farm delivery, regional cargo transport between fixed airports, and humanitarian aid distribution - are introduced that highlight the need for autonomous mission and contingency management in UAS. Second, requirements for a MCM system fulfilling these use cases are derived. A functional decomposition of MCM systems is performed, and state-of-the-art capabilities for each function are reviewed. Finally, gaps are identified to highlight opportunities for new MCM capabilities to advance the level of autonomy in UAS.
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| Keywords: Mission Management; Contingency Management; Unmanned Aircraft Systems; Mission-Level Autonomy; Onboard Decision-Making |
 View PDF CEAS-GNC-2026-096 doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-096 |
| Pranav Nagarajan, Johann C. Dauer, Florian Holzapfel: Challenges and Opportunities in UAS Mission and Contingency Management. Proceedings of the 2026 CEAS EuroGNC conference. Madrid, Spain. May 2026. doi: 10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-096.
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| BibTeX entry (UTF-8):
@Incollection{CEAS-GNC-2026-096,
author = {Nagarajan, Pranav and Dauer, Johann C. and Holzapfel, Florian},
title = {Challenges and Opportunities in UAS Mission and Contingency Management},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 {CEAS EuroGNC} conference},
address = {Madrid, Spain},
month = may,
year = {2026},
doi = {10.82124/CEAS-GNC-2026-096}
}
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