NASA Announces Drone Traffic Test Locations
Emily Pollock posted on February 25, 2019 |
A NASA official tests a UTM drone. (Image courtesy of NASA.)
NASA has chosen locations in Nevada and Texas to assess the safe use of drones in crowded urban environments.
On February 19th, NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) project announced where it will test the fourth and final stage of their project on controlling drone traffic. The first location is Las Vegas’ Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems, a government-funded non-profit which promotes the growth of Nevada’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry. The second is the Lone Star UAS Center for Excellence and Innovation in Corpus Christi, Tex., one of seven Federal Aviation Administration test sites.
The assessments are meant to determine if its drone management system can safely regulate drone traffic in an urban area. While the first stage also tested low-flying drones, stages two and three brought the drones into airspaces of sparsely-populated and moderately-populated areas, respectively. The fourth stage will examine whether drones can be used safely for functions like gathering news and delivering packages in dense urban areas.
“Our [program] represents the most complicated demonstration of advanced unmanned aircraft systems(UAS) operating in a demanding urban environment that will have been tested to date,” said Ronald Johnson, NASA UTM project manager.
The program’s…