Drone Superhighways – Traffic Management is Required

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Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) is the platform that will allow unmanned aerial vehicles and manned aircraft to operate harmoniously in the same airspace. 

The UTM market was valued at US$ 647.1 million in 2019 and is projected to reach US$ $2.357 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 20.28% during the forecast period, according to neighborwebsj.com.

Through the widespread adoption of UTM platforms, governments and authorities will be able to begin building the super-highways of the future – networks of interlinking drone corridors that will revolutionize the transportation of goods; from medical supplies and fast-food deliveries to ‘Amazon-like’ parcel drop off and collections.

UTM implementation is expected to accelerate the growth of the use of drones, and expand unmanned commercial services. However, a report in suasnews.com claims that functioning UTM does not mean that businesses will be attracted or that they will be willing to accept or pay for the services. To realize the full potential of UTM requires the industry to resolve a range of questions from the safety of operations to the consideration of the end-user needs and questions on commercial acceptance of the technology.

Supplementary services in UTM can be thought of as enhancing the core or regulated services to enable improvements in the service levels for UAS operations by providing additional information services, such as weather services, insurance services, geographical information services (terrain and obstacle data), surveillance data, and aeronautical Information.

Several UTM systems are being established in Europe. A new UTM system will soon be established in Finland. A defined set of federated services and associated functions will enable and support safe and efficient multiple simultaneous traffic operations – first focusing on manned air traffic, followed by unmanned air traffic and sea and land in that country.

The Situational Awareness module will allow for real-time map-based status of the use of airspace for all airspace users. Additionally, users will be able to access usage history and planned airspace activity in the future. 

The Briefing Facility service will aim for a better user experience by taking advantage of new services such as a flight plan acknowledgment and reminder service for the pilot, a storage and retrieval service for previous flight plans, and various equipment registries. These functions will be there to serve both manned and unmanned air traffic. 

Astra UTM will be delivering the Situational Awareness and Briefing Facility systems for Fintraffic ANS’s Digital Business Platform which is a collaborative initiative under UTM company Fintraffic.

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