Development of Hierarchical UAS Traffic Management (UTM) in Taiwan

Abstract

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will soon be legally flying into airspace in Taiwan and many countries. UAS traffic management (UTM) becomes an important issue to challenge aviation safety. A hierarchical UTM is proposed and constructed based on the concept of Air Traffic Management (ATM) for the manned aviation system. The proposed Regional UTM (RUTM) and National UTM (NUTM) are hierarchical infrastructure to offers traffic management services for all legal UAV flights in Taipei Flight Information Region (TPE FIR) under and over 400 feet. The proposed UTM provides UAV/pilot log-in/out, flight planning, geo-fencing, detect and avoid (DAA), logbook records, big data analysis, ground control redundant support and controller-pilot communication on multi-window monitor system. UTM data are encrypted to prevent hijacking threat to low altitude UAVs. The UTM adopts ADS-B Like communication infrastructure to offer affordable cost for all UAVs with high reliable surveillance data reporting. The ADS-B Like surveillance mechanism includes 4G/LTE, LoRa, APRS and XBee. Their gateway deployment is designed and constructed with supports of Chung Hua Telecommunication (CHT) in urban and suburban areas. While those remote areas, such as mountain and deep forest, the National Forest Bureau workstation will be selected. The ADS-B Like communication will cover full airspace in Taiwan. Surveillance data reliability, continuity, integrity and availability will be examined by flight tests. The proposed Hierarchical UTM will launch trial runs in Tainan County of RUTM operation to verify the proposed concept, system performance and general operation into the national “UAS Innovative Experiment Project”.