How It Works - UK (2020-05)

TRANSPORT

I

n a future that’s creeping ever closer,

21st-century technology will drive the

smallest of everyday tasks. As the demand

for drone applications rises, they could soon

swarm across large stretches of the sky,

delivering goods, monitoring the air quality

and acting as surveillance systems to keep us

all in check.

Not only could a highway in the sky help

companies expand their business, it could

also help control casual drone-fliers. Putting

more rules on the occupation of airspace

could force hobbyists to carry out their drone

flying using safer equipment and make them

more respectful of boundaries.

One common idea – shared by Amazon,

NASA and Google – is to create lanes in the

sky: a superhighway for aircraft of different

speeds and classifications. This would stop

drones being flown at heights occupied by

commercial planes or near airports. When

Amazon announced Prime Air – a new way to

deliver online orders using drones – it was

hard to imagine the details. How could each

individual parcel be flown exclusively

through the air, rather than in the safety of

the postman’s satchel? However, with a

framework already in place, Amazon’s

proposed drone superhighway shows the sort

of structure that could allow for an updated

postal network. So how will drones avoid

airborne obstacles to transform the

infrastructureofindustriesusuallyfoundon

the ground?

How will these autonomous vehicles take to the skies?

Creating a drone

superhighway

How urban airspace could be safely split into lanes

Traffic management

Safer flying

Accidents have already shown the

dangers uncrewed drones can cause by

sharing the sky with larger, crewed

aircraft. With this in mind, planners have

realised communication between them is

key. Being able to sense and avoid other

obstacles using radio waves, drones can

automatically move away from danger.

Drones need to react with the same

efficiency a pilot would to avoid

collisions, otherwise the superhighway

system is a road to disaster. Some forms

of sense-and-avoid technology create

alerts which are sent to the ground for an

operator to take action, but the best form

of this radar technology is when vehicles

sense other vehicles or objects in the sky

and respond automatically. Not only is

this quicker, but more effective for

mass-scale drone flying.

Drones equipped with detection technology would

allow others to fly in closer proximity

© Alamy

http://www.howitworksdaily.com

© Getty

080 How It Works

No-flyzone

Altitudesfrom 120 to 150 metres

areforbiddenforflyingdrones.This

giveslargeraircraftconfidencethat

theywon’tencountersmalldrones

whenflyingin thisarea.

High-speedtransit

Thehighestdronescanflyin this

superhighwayproposalis 120metres.

Primarilythisareais forthosecarrying

outlong-distancedeliveries,andthe

speedtheyflyatwillbemuchgreater

thanthosein theregionsbelow.

Low-speedlocalisedtraffic

Thisis theslowlane,includingaltitudesbelow

60 metres.Anylocaldronescarryingout

businessin theareacanusethissectionand

needtoabidebythesaferspeedlimit.

Integratedairspace

Abovethedrone-orientedlanes

liea mixtureofaircraftvarieties.

Atgreaterheightscommercial

aeroplanesflyin drone-freezones

beyondtheno-flyzone.

Takeoffandlanding

Asoneofthemostcomplicatedandcrucialparts

ofanyaircraft’sjourney,traffic-management

systemscouldfocusonsmoothascentsand

descentsbyallowingtimebetweentakeoffsin

allocatedareasofcities.

Droneswithjobs

Overurbanareas,increasingthe

volumeofdronessafelyutilising

theskyalsobroadensthenumber

ofrolestheycanplayin a

community’slives.Theseinclude

localweatherforecasting,

securityandsurveillance,town

planningandspeedydeliveryof

suppliesin emergencies.