NASA has partnered with University of Nevada, Rino, to create software to manage air traffic control for drones.
"With all of the many uses being developed for unmanned aerial systems, air-traffic nearer to the ground has the potential to become very crowded. We're pleased to be part of this leading-edge, forward-thinking project" said Warren Rapp, business director for the University's Nevada Advanced Autonomous Systems Innovation Center, according to a press release of the UNR News Room.
The University is working with Flirtey, the world's first drone delivery service, and Drone America, one of the world's top providers of unmanned autonomous vehicles.
Flirtey and Drone America have agreed to test their delivery drones on NASA's Unmanned Traffic Management system test this month in Nevada and California.
NASA and its collaboration are perfecting the drone traffic management for a safer drone delivery system across countries.
"We need to devise a system to make vehicles autonomously aware of each other so they can avoid each other, as well as a system to create traffic 'patterns' or navigation protocols that would keep aircraft away from each other in the first place," according to Richard Kelley, chief engineer and researcher for the Nevada Advanced Autonomous Systems Innovation Center, Engadget reports.
Given the implications of this system, a lot of companies have expressed interest in the project, including Amazon, which has recently asked the FAA to provide a separate air space for drone delivery services, as reported in another HNGN article.
As of this time, the FAA is still working out rules for governing drones used as product delivery mechanisms, much to the chagrin of Amazon, according to Forbes.
