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NASA Drones to Fly Over Reno and Corpus Christi Starting March

For several years now NASA has been trying to help the drone industry grow in a controlled and safe manner, especially when it comes to drones operating over urban areas. The agency’s program designed for this purpose, Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) is entering its final stagein 2019. 
NASA to test drone management system this year 13 photos
Photo: NASA
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Starting March, the cities of Reno in Nevada and Corpus Christi in Texas will be witnessing drones flying in their skies as part of NASA’s technical demonstrations. These flights are meant to highlight the requirements of drone traffic management in urban areas.

The two companies that will be flying the drones for NASA are the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems and Lone Star UAS Center for Excellence & Innovation.

“This phase represents the most complicated demonstration of advanced UAS operating in a demanding urban environment that will have been tested to date,” said in a statement Ronald Johnson, NASA’s UTM project manager.

“We are pleased at the plans by our partners in Nevada and Texas to conduct flight tests in a true urban environment with the support of the City of Reno and the City of Corpus Christi.”

Guidelines for operating drones in an urban environment are becoming a necessity as the technology evolves. At the end of last year, at London’s Gatwick airport, hundreds of flights were grounded because of drone illegally entering the site airspace.

In today’s world, it’s also very difficult for legal drone operators to fly their machines due to the lack of an integrated managements system complete with rules and regulations.

NASA set out four years ago to find the best way to operate drones safely over cities. Its research focused on the creation of a flight management system that includes detection, avoidance and communications between the drones.

This final test phase of the system is scheduled to end in August 2019.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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