Unmanned Traffic Management - Motivation and Future Perspectives

Abstract

Unmanned traffic management is emerging in the context of more and more unmanned aircraft flying in the sky at different altitudes, needing in turn adequate traffic control. This nevertheless poses tensions with the current air traffic management establishments concerning mainly manned air traffic. Even though it is widely claimed that manned aircraft should have priority over unmanned missions, we currently miss adequate rules, regulations, and standards in this direction. Further, in contrast to manned aircraft (such as civil airplanes, for example) and big drones, that are to receive solid support from formally established ground stations, low-altitude-flying drones can effectively be navigated and controlled by means of IoT facilitations. Hence, we need to harmonize all those activities and technologies, for the sake of guaranteeing safety in the sky. In the current paper, we not only analyze those challenges but we also discuss implementation-related issues and present a vision for the future. This is research-in-progress and as such it is not supported by validation which is planned as further work.