A Swiss firm and a German-based company announced on Monday they would develop Europe's first national drone traffic management system in Switzerland.
A Swiss firm and a German-based company announced on Monday they would develop Europe's first national drone traffic management system in Switzerland.
Skyguide, the Swiss air navigation service provider, and AirMap, a German-based airspace management platform for drones, made the announcement in a joint release in Geneva.
"The system will be the first national deployment of U-space, Europe's vision for the digital infrastructure that will support safe and secure access to European skies for millions of drones," the companies said.
“After a year of successful collaboration with AirMap, we expect that the AirMap UTM platform meets the highest standards required for a Swiss U-space,” says Klaus Meier, Chief Information Officer of skyguide. “We’re looking forward to bringing U-space capabilities to Switzerland and we are excited to drive this innovation together with AirMap.”
“With Swiss U-space, Switzerland aims to safely open the skies for drone commerce,” said Ben Marcus, CEO of AirMap. “We’re proud to work with skyguide to bring AirMap UTM to Switzerland and make it possible for more pilots, more drones, and more missions to take flight in Europe.”
“The establishment of a U-space is the key to improve drone operations’ safety and to satisfy the security and privacy concerns of our citizens. In order to achieve these objectives, a seamless cooperation between all the partners involved is crucial. I am glad to see that a further important step to tackle this challenge was taken today.” said Christian Hegner, Director General of Switzerland’s Federal Office of Civil Aviation.
They said that much like the U.S. "Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM)" initiative, U-space is a collaborative effort to enable situational awareness, data exchange, and digital communication for the European drone ecosystem.
The pilot phase will start in June.
Skyguide and AirMap said they will also develop a roadmap for Swiss U-space that will set the stage for the deployment of a fully operational drone traffic management system in 2019.
The two companies said the AirMap platform provides national airspace rules for more than 20 countries and reaches more than 85 percent of the world's drones through its network.
Since 2013, drone flight requests at Skyguide have multiplied tenfold.
Switzerland is home to many drone companies and the world's first autonomous drone delivery network, located in Zurich, the press release said.
