Aeronautics: UTM Team Wins 2020 NASA Honor Award
December 2020
Adding to an impressive list of awards, the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) team received a 2020 NASA Honor Award – Group Achievement Award for the UTM – Technical Level Capability–4 (TCL–4) Demonstration. TCL–4 was a successful demonstration of the NASA UTM system for safely and efficiently managing several small drones flying over the complex urban environments of downtown Reno, NV and Corpus Christi, TX. The demonstration highlighted federated airspace management by seven different commercial UAS Service Suppliers providing drone traffic management services for a variety of applications including package delivery, building inspections, traffic monitoring, and emergency response operations. The promise of drones has been demonstrated, and UTM is the system that enables it to become a reality. This innovative air traffic management solution is already serving our society and will be the foundation for transforming the nation's air traffic management system in the future.
The NAMS team supporting UTM TCL–4 were Charlene Cayabyab (USRA), Tung Nguyen (Crown), and Punam Verma (USRA). Additional TCL–4 team members who were associated with NAMS at the time include Michele Cencetti (USRA Post Doc), Dat Duong (FRA), Maurice Gray (FRA), and Matt Ma (FRA).
The image below is a commemorative poster highlighting the concept, impact, awards, and people of the UTM project. When it all started in 2015, the small UAS industry was just beginning to accelerate with no clear concept of how this new traffic could be safely managed. Through partnerships with FAA, industry, and academia, a concept was created, and UTM was developed to meet stakeholder’s needs. A series of increasingly complex activities tested the prototype UTM system of federated services in realistic environments to prove the concept. Industry has created business models around providing UTM services and is now taking leadership in standards development. The FAA is embarking on the UTM implementation program that will unleash, in a disciplined way, a multi-billion-dollar industry. Now in 2020 – the final year of the project – the UTM concept is the springboard for managing UAS in all airspace domains and a powerful influence on the future NAS transformation.
