Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) Concept of Operations
Many applications of small Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) have been envisioned. These include surveillance of key assets such as pipelines, rail, or electric wires, deliveries, search and rescue, traffic monitoring, videography, and precision agriculture. These operations are likely to occur in the same airspace in presence of many static and dynamic constraints such as airports, and high wind areas. Therefore, small UAS, typically 55 lb and below, operations need to be managed to ensure safety and efficiency of operations is maintained. This paper will describe the Concept of Operations (ConOps) for NASA's UAS Traffic Management (UTM) research initiative. The UTM ConOps is focused on safely enabling large scale small UAS (sUAS) operations in low altitude airspace. The UTM construct supports large scale visual line of sight and beyond visual line of sight operations. It is based on two primary mantras: (1) flexibility where possible and structure where necessary (2) a risk based approach where geographical needs and use case indicate the airspace performance requirements. Preliminary stakeholder feedback and initial UTM tests conducted by NASA show promise of UTM to enable large scale low altitude UAS operations safely.