The Federal Aviation Administration recently announced new testing to safely integrate drones into the nation's airspace.
FAA's Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) field test, expected to begin this spring, is intended to "allow the government and the drone community to continue improving standards, data-exchange methods and cybersecurity capabilities," FAA's news release said. FAA's UTM program "is a 'traffic management' ecosystem" that allows for uncontrolled operations separate from but complementary to the administration's Air Traffic Management system.
"UTM includes a set of services that are complementary to, but separate from, air traffic management services for manned aircraft," the news release continued. "It is targeted toward small unmanned aircraft operations in airspace, generally flying below 400 feet, and builds on current rules and capabilities that enable airspace access and authorization."
The UTM field test is planned to set up a framework for data exchange between various organizations to manage low-altitude drone flight. The field test builds on previous rules for operation of unmanned vehicles in the nation's airspace under 400 feet, expanding them to allow for immediate airspace authorization and out-of-sight drone flights.
Field tests should provide FAA researchers with information about effectively managing drone traffic in various environments and conditions.
"UTM development will ultimately identify services, roles and responsibilities, information architecture, data exchange protocols, software functions, infrastructure, and performance requirements for enabling the management of low-altitude uncontrolled drone operations," the page says.
