Drone industry must build infrastructure for traffic management

HOUSTON — The U.S. drone industry needs to collaborate on infrastructure to support a traffic management system for its aircraft. As more drones take to the skies, it becomes increasingly vital to implement widespread uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) traffic management systems (UTM), Christopher Knapp, director of business development at communications technology company Persistent Systems, said at AUVSI Xponential 2025 this week. [caption id="attachment_57289002" align="aligncenter" width="2011"] Christopher Knapp, director of business development at communications technology company Persistent Systems, speaks at AUVSI Xponential 2025. (Photo/Cargo Facts)[/caption] While drone delivery has grown in recent years, it has been slow and isn’t available in many locales, Knapp said. “Why is it not moving at the pace it needs to?” he said. “The reason for that, from my opinion, is that the network is not established for that to be enabled.” 5G not the answer The FAA has an air traffic control system, but drones fly in Class G airspace, which is uncontrolled by the FAA. “For the FAA to start controlling it, the amount of resources, the amount of time and the technology [that would be] needed — it's just not economical,” Knapp said. As with air traffic control, drones need to see each other and communicate to avoid collisions and other incidents. But this requires infrastructure that supports that communication. Enter UTMs. 4G, the technology that supports cellular networks and data speeds, has proliferated across 99% of the United States, according to the FCC. But it cannot support a nationwide UTM, or even a statewide one, Knapp said. Perhaps an obvious solution would be 5G, the next generation of mobile technology, but 5G coverage is far more limited than 4G coverage. “The infrastructure needed to expand 5G in the same way that 4G exists, it's $130 billion to $150 billion that needs to be invested for the fiber backbone and all the stuff that goes with it,” Knapp said. “And none of the companies that are doing drone delivery control that.” 5G will be controlled by telecom companies, leaving drone operators reliant on a third party for its UTM — a third party whose priority is not UTM. Also, while the 5G millimeter wave is highly advanced, it lacks penetration and range, which requires a vast number of antennae, Knapp said. “And when you're running your network over something that is effectively open, you're going to introduce cyber vulnerabilities and other things you haven't thought of,” he said. “And the other side, when you talk about security, is the physical security of these antennae.” MANET solution A mesh network, which is a group of connectivity devices like Wi-Fi routers that act as a single network, could help create UTMs. However, mesh networks can’t scale larger than around 5,550 square feet and, if the control node goes out, the network goes out, Knapp said. Knapp’s company has created a possible solution with the mobile ad-hoc network (MANET). “When we talk about a true peer-to-peer environment, we talk about an environment where you've got individual nodes operating as a collective,” he said. “If one node drops out of the network, that local change does not have a global impact on the network. That node can leave the network and come back to the network.” MANET is a decentralized, closed network that can be scaled however large users require by adding additional nodes, Knapp said.

Drone industry must build infrastructure for traffic management

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