NASA expects to perform a series of small unmanned aircraft system demonstrations in Texas and Las Vegas to validate a traffic management tool’s operational capacity. The agency said Tuesday it will deploy unmanned aircraft units within Corpus Christi, Texas and Reno, Nevada to showcase the UAS Traffic Management platform’s drone traffic management functions in urban areas.
In addition, NASA will demonstrate a vehicle-to-vehicle communication and collision avoidance tool, an automated safe landing platform, a UAS service supplier interface and a flight information system.
Efforts under the demonstrations are part of NASA’s Airspace Operations and Safety Program that intends to help the commercial drone market confirm potential urban flight concerns and assist in the creation of policies, rules and traffic management processes for safe UAS operations.
The agency has tapped the Lone Star UAS Center for Excellence and Innovation and the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems to assist with the demonstrations.