Drones - Testing beyond Line-Of-Sight operations - FAA - Avionics

NASA Announces First Test of Drones Flying Beyond-Line-Of-Sight

Juliet Van Wagenen

Drone Co-habitation Services operates a Phantom 3 commercial multi-rotor unmanned aircraft, one of 11 vehicles in the UTM TCL2 demonstration that will fly beyond line of sight of the pilot in command in Nevada test. Photo: NASA/Dominic Hart

[Avionics Magazine 10-14-2016] NASA is testing the first Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) research platform to fly beyond-line-of-sight on Oct. 19, at Reno-Stead Airport in Reno, Nevada.

During this test, five drones will fly beyond the line-of-sight of their operators in order to test the planning, tracking and alerting capabilities of NASA’s UTM platform — what it sees as a critical step in the development of the technology and procedures for the safe management of drone air traffic. From this test, NASA, in collaboration with the FAA, will collect data critical to refining its UTM