NASA wants to keep your drones from crashing into each other

One of the key issues surrounding the acceptance and legalities of drones has been the number of high-profile incidents where drone operators have caused trouble. While consumer drones typically come with GPS blackout systems, which means the drone will not allow its operator to fly in certain areas designated by GPS coordinates, this does not entirely avoid issues.

Ensuring that operations are free from accident becomes more crucial as drones saturate the sky. That’s why NASA Ames’ Unmanned Aerial Systems Traffic Management project and its counterparts are so important to the future of the industry. The NASA unmanned traffic management or UTM project has seen significant progress since it was announced in September 2014. The organization has created recently the software necessary for the system to be implemented. The idea is that the software will be installed in every autonomous drone in use and will communicate with other drones in order to avoid not only crashing into each other, but other flying hazards such as birds. Testing of the system begins over uninhabited areas this fall.