Unmanned aircraft system traffic management (UTM) is an air traffic management ecosystem under development for autonomously controlled operations of

unmanned aerial system An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

s (UAS) by the

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

, other federal partner agencies, and industry. They are collaboratively exploring concepts of operation, data exchange requirements, and a supporting framework to enable multiple UAS operations beyond visual line-of-sight at altitudes under 400 ft above ground level in airspace where FAA air traffic services are not provided. UTM is separate from but complementary to the FAA's Air Traffic Management ( ATM) system. UTM development will ultimately identify services, roles/responsibilities, information architecture, data exchange protocols, software functions, infrastructure, and performance requirements for enabling the management of low-altitude uncontrolled UAS operations. A Research Transition Team (RTT) has been established between the FAA, NASA and industry to coordinate the UTM initiative. Areas of focus include concept and use case development, data exchange and information architecture, communications and navigation, and sense and avoid. Research and testing will identify airspace operations requirements to enable safe visual and beyond visual line-of-sight UAS flights in low-altitude airspace. FAA published a UAS Traffic Management Research Plan in 2017.

Operation Zenith

On November 21, 2018, a total of 13 independent organisations took part in an event at

Manchester Airport Manchester Airport is an international airport in Ringway, Manchester, England, south-west of Manchester city centre. In 2019, it was the third busiest airport in the United Kingdom in terms of passenger numbers and the busiest of those n ...

coordinated by UTM Service Provider Altitude Angel and

Air Navigation Service Provider An air navigation service provider (ANSP) is a public or a private legal entity providing Air Navigation Services. It manages air traffic on behalf of a company, region or country. Depending on the specific mandate an ANSP provides one or more o ...

for the United Kingdom, NATS, which demonstrated the safe integration of unmanned traffic into controlled airspace. It is regarded as one of the first live-demonstrations of its kind and was considered to be the "most technically complex and comprehensive demonstration in the world so far of a UTM system".

U-space

The SESAR Joint Undertaking, which is a public-private partnership supported and funded by the European Union, Eurocontrol and a number of industry partners, has defined the U-Space Blueprint.U-space blueprint
/ref> U-space is a set of new services relying on a high level of digitalisation and automation of functions and specific procedures designed to support safe, efficient and secure access to airspace for large numbers of drones. The EU regulations now requires implementation of a UTM system in order to support U-space by 26/1-2023.

References

{{reflist Regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles Air traffic management