NASA recently announced that they’ve selected two partners to host the fourth and final phase of its UTM Project, which will test systems to safely and effectively manage drone traffic in urban areas in two U.S. cities.
NASA’s two partners are the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems, located in Las Vegas, NV and the Lone Star UAS Center for Excellence & Innovation, located in Corpus Christi, TX.
This [fourth] phase represents the most complicated demonstration of advanced UAS operating in a demanding urban environment that will have been tested to date.
– Ronald Johnson, UTM Project Manager for NASA
The test flights will take place in and around downtown Reno, Nevada between March and June, and in Corpus Christi during July and August.
About NASA’s UTM Project
UTM stands for Unmanned Traffic Management, which is a catchall phrase for systems made to manage drone traffic and keep drones and manned aircraft from colliding.
Although private companies like Matternet and AirMap have made headlines for their work in bringing UTMs to market at scale—most notably in Switzerland, where there is now a UTM in place for the entire country’s air traffic—NASA has also been working on its own UTM technology for several years.
The stated goal of the NASA UTM Project is “to develop technologies, roles, responsibilities and procedures for a future airspace management system that safely manages autonomous aircraft operations in populated areas.”
NASA has enlisted a plethora of private and government agency partners to help with this work. In addition to the two partners mentioned above, who will be hosting the fourth phase of their UTM testing, NASA has also partnered with the FAA, as well as 70+ other private companies and government entities (see the full list of NASA’s UTM partners here).
A key part of NASA’s UTM Project has been the testing they’ve conducted of their UTM system, which has taken place in a series of phases (also referred to as different levels of Technical Capabilities).
These tests are a core part of NASA’s initial directive in this research, which was to design, test, and demonstrate a UTM that will allow drones to have full access to low-altitude airspace “not currently managed by the FAA” (i.e., airspace other than that found at airports and in other highly-trafficked/highly managed areas).