PAVING THE WAY TOWARDS A COMPREHENSIVE UTM INFRASTRUCTURE BY EVALUATING NOVEL D2X COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS FOR UAVS IN FLIGHT TESTS

Abstract

Initiatives in the U.S. and Europe, such as the Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) framework proposed by NASA, the FAA and others, as well as the U-space concept, develop and explore Air Traffic Management (ATM) concepts to integrate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) into the existing airspace in order to ensure safe coexistence and collaboration between manned and unmanned air vehicles in the future. One key attribute to maintain aviation safety, is safe and secure communications between all airborne vehicles, including UAVs. In consequence, this publication will describe and evaluate a novel D2X (drone-to-drone, drone-to-infrastructure or drone-to-vehicle) technology designed to provide fast and efficient communication means especially for UAVs.