Nasa builds air traffic control for drones

The Nasa scientists, led by an Indian- origin researcher, are developing an air traffic control system for drones that would scan for adverse weather conditions and also prevent the small unmanned vehicles from running into buildings.

The Nasa’s drone traffic management programme would in effect be a separate air traffic control system for things that fly low to the ground, around 400 to 500 feet for most drones.

Much like the air traffic control system for conventional aircraft, the programme would monitor the skies for weather and traffic.

The system would also prevent the drones from running into buildings, news helicopters or other lower- flying objects, a more challenging task than for an airplane flying at 30,000 feet. There would also be no- fly zones, such as anywhere near a major airport, New York Times reported.

“One at a time you can make them work and keep them safe. But when you have a number of them in operation in the same airspace, there is no infrastructure to support it,” said Parimal H. Kopardekar, a Nasa principal investigator who is developing and managing the programme. The Nasa system, like the drones themselves, would dispense with the people and use computers and algorithms to figure out where they can and cannot fly. The Federal Aviation Administration controls the skies in the US and it would have to sign off on any kind of drone management system.

An FAA spokesman said the agency expected to publish a proposed rule for small unmanned aircraft ( less than 25 kg) this year, according to the report.