Lockheed Martin Demonstrates Drone Air Traffic Control System

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Lockheed Martin has successfully demonstrated an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) air traffic control system on 18 November. During the demonstration, Lockheed employed its UAS Traffic Management (UTM) system to have a Stalker XE UAS direct a water carrying, unmanned K-MAX helicopter to extinguish a fire.

The Stalker XE UAS was tasked with identifying fire intensity using its onboard electro-optical, infrared sensors. Its high-definition image capture capabilities allow it to operate at night as well as during the day, with more than eight hours of flight endurance. The UTM system tracked the operation and communicated in real-time with air traffic control.

“This demonstration represents the path forward for flying UAS in the NAS using Flight Service-based UTM capabilities to extend the technology and systems that air traffic controllers know and understand,” said Paul Engola, Lockheed Martin’s Vice President for Transportation & Financial Solutions. “We were able to successfully modify the existing K-MAX and Stalker XE ground control software to connect to the UTM services and conduct the firefighting mission.”

The testing demonstrated that unmanned systems are already capable of working in cooperation in a relatively busy, hazardous airspace without causing an accident. This, together with the drone’s nighttime operational capabilities, could significantly bolster firefighting efforts in high-risk areas. Potentially, their introduction and application to firefighting could triple the amount of time aerial support is available to ground crews .

Any UAS traffic control system would have to ensure drones are capable of detecting and avoiding collisions with each other and any nearby air traffic, as well as keeping within the limits of their allowed altitude. NASA and MIT startup Airwave are working on a similar system.