Gadkari unveils advanced drone air traffic management system 'Skye UTM'

New Delhi, Feb 8 (IANS) Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday unveiled Skye UTM, touted as the most cutting-edge unmanned traffic management system in the world, here which is capable of handling 4,000 flights per hour and 96,000 flights per day.

Skye UTM is a Cloud-based aerial traffic management system that integrates unmanned air traffic with the manned aviation airspace.

Skye UTM has been built towards providing situational awareness, autonomous navigation, risk assessment, and traffic management to all drone/other aerial mobility operators across the airspace.

Emphasising new technologies in construction, infra and highway sector, the minister said it is the right time for Indian drone startups to lead the industry.

"Drones are going to be used across sectors -- from construction, agriculture, healthcare, defence, infrastructure, surveying, real estate, and transport. Drone companies will even monitor highways and road construction. There is a lot of research happening that will certainly help scale its usage," Gadkari said at the event.

He said the Ministry will soon invite participation from drone startups to be deployed for real-time monitoring and speed up highway constructions, and also keep a check on fatal road accidents.

A tender will soon be floated by the ministry to execute the operation, the Minister informed.

According to Ankit Kumar, CEO, Skye Air, the requirement for situational awareness has become a necessity and the drone pilots, regulators and controllers need real-time information around the drones in the sky.

"Skye UTM is a game changer in this regard providing situational awareness to both regulators and pilots, by digitally establishing communication with the drones and connecting traffic across the airspace," said Kumar.

Skye UTM has supported more than 300 successful BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) drone flights to date.

The Skye UTM captures more than 255 parameters of UAV movements and stores them into its 'Blackbox' which is a published systematic description of the entire flight.

The platform offers the first 3D view of the drone airspace, along with operations and regulations mapping servers which offer the latest airspace status, verified paths, and display real time UAV movements, said the company.

With the system's successful commercial debut in India, Skye UTM is now accessible to everyone and the traffic management system will also be introduced globally in the coming days.