Low Level Drone Traffic Management. Concept of Operation and Technological Solutions

Air traffic management has been a constant preoccupation of aviation authorities since the advent of transport aviation. It aims to ensure flight safety, notably by separating aircraft from each other, and air traffic efficiency by optimizing traffic flows. It also provides services for airspace users.

Drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, are a new category of aircraft.

Taking advantage of advances in digital technologies, their development is now exponential, for both leisure and professional applications. However, the emergence of these new airspace users raises flight safety issues for other users, and poses a threat to the safety of certain installations and to the privacy of citizens. The safe and efficient integration of drones into air traffic is therefore a concern for the entire aeronautical community, government authorities and economic players alike.

The Riga declaration (see box) has been welcomed by drone operators eager to be able to routinely carry out missions below 150 meters above ground level in airspace that is generally uncontrolled away from airports and controlled close to them. Flying in these areas without the ability to see and avoid, and without any assistance from air traffic controllers, is such a challenge that drones do not obtain routine flight clearance unless they are in sight of the remote pilot, or have observers who retain a direct view of the drone and its environment.

Even though most aircraft do not fly at very low altitudes, use of the low layer of airspace is not sufficiently rare to satisfy safety objectives set by regulators. To solve this problem, we propose adaptations to the structure of the airspace and its rules of use.

The current European airspace management architecture has been defined for pilot-on-board aircraft operations. This architecture has been put in place to manage airspace from low levels near airports to medium and high altitudes throughout Europe, leaving a large portion of low-level airspace uncontrolled. This uncontrolled part of the airspace is used by many types of manned traffic, operating either under visual flight rules or instrument flight rules. Pilots manage this part of the airspace by visually observing other traffic and keeping a safe distance, in accordance with the rules of the air.

The recent rapid increase in drone traffic must be taken into account to integrate these machines into the airspace without adversely affecting other traffic. UAVs can be of any type and size, and their missions can take place in any class of airspace at any altitude. However, the concept of low-level drone operation described in this article is mainly dedicated to airspace below 500 feet above ground level....