Designed To Enable Collision Avoidance Between Drones And Manned Aircraft

PrecisionHawk has been awarded two patents for technologies it has developed for UTM. The patents, titled ‘Automated Unmanned Air Traffic Control System,’ are designed to enable collision avoidance between drones and manned aircraft. This is achieved by transmitting real-time flight data from drones to a UTM server prior to and while in-flight.

In order to safely fly drones long distances, operators must be able to avoid collisions with other drones and manned aircraft. The first patent is for technology that allows drones to send real-time telemetry to flight servers to avoid collisions while in the air. The second patent helps drone operators avoid collisions by transmitting their flight plan to a traffic management server prior to a flight to see if there is a potential for flight conflicts. The traffic management server receives similar data for other drones and manned aircraft. If there is potential for collision, the traffic management server sends an alert to the drone so the operator can adjust the flight plan.

In 2015, the company introduced LATAS, the Low Altitude Tracking and Avoidance System. LATAS was designed to provide flight planning, tracking, and avoidance for every drone in the sky using real-time flight data transmission based on existing worldwide cellular networks. PrecisionHawk researched and developed LATAS to show that integrating drones into the National Airspace (NAS) could be done safely, which would enable broad drone operations.

These new patent awards are the latest in PrecisionHawk’s long history of UAS innovations.

The value of drones is on display across industries, including search and rescue, infrastructure inspection and analysis, and delivery of life-saving medicines and essentials. In order to realize the humanitarian and economic benefits of drone technology in a safe and secure manner, a robust, automated UTM system must be in place to handle the expected traffic with remote identification to identify UAS.

The manned air traffic control system will not be able to scale to meet the needs of UAS operations and the burgeoning urban air mobility (UAM) industry. PrecisionHawk’s latest patents will contribute to the efforts to bring a safe, secure UAS traffic control system online.

FMI: www.precisionhawk.com