With time, the usage of drones is increasing with high frequency. Drones are an effective way of surveillance and provide more comprehensive coverage due to their hovering capability in the sky. The acceptance of drones will bring more drones and make them a regular sight on a normal day. But, this may lead to the collision of drones in the sky. So, it is a need to design a safe flight path for these drones. Vodafone and Ericsson are trying to develop ‘sky corridors’ to give safe passage to drones. They got success in one of the trials of sky corridors testing.
Why are sky corridors necessary?
Drones find their widespread applications in videography, defense applications, and surveillance. The future will see more advancement in drone electronics and mechanics due to the adoption of technologies like Artificial Intelligence. Home-delivery and Supply chain is the next domain that can harness the potential of drones. Considering the e-commerce operations in countries like the USA, Canada, UK, etc., this sector holds the capacity of around 200 billion USD. Using drones will ensure smoother delivery in less time. Hence, it will increase the productivity and efficiency of the supply chain. But, then there should be regulation of the path of drones. Even soon, a term like “drone traffic” can find its space among customers. So, drone-tech providers should work on the trajectory and flight to avoid any accidents in the journey. Any collision will lead to significant losses. Because of this, there is a need for sky corridors for drones.
How “sky corridors” will help drones?
Creating sky corridors will help the drones not to intervene in other drones’ paths or aircraft. Such steps will help regulators accept drones’ presence, who are raising concerns about their fidelity. Sky corridors will provide coverage maps where drones can fly and keep good air connectivity. The Third parties can offer coverage maps data and other crucial information about congestion via their APIs. It will help plot the safe paths for drones and connect in real-time without any network drop with the control centers.
Potentials of Sky Corridors
There are many red lines for drones that the drone-tech providers cannot cross. Services like the supply of medical equipment, medicines, power lines, construction materials are beyond the drones’ ambit. Again, there lie the same reasons (concerns of regulators). But, the concept of sky corridors can dismantle such concerns raised in the past. Vodafone and Ericsson tried to test this sky corridor. In Spain, Vodafone used a drone over 5G to fly and deliver a defibrillator to a cardiac arrest patient scene.
Conclusion
According to the safe sky corridors, there will be the advent of an interconnected model named “Telco-as-a-Service” (TaaS) in the future. TaaS will generate flight paths by reading the current congestion and drones’ location using a cellular service network. There is a need for more pilot projects that can consolidate the effectiveness of sky corridors. Sky corridors will increase the outreach of drones in essential services. Drones will become crucial to deliver vital and necessary goods during the time of disasters.
Eva winget is a Microsoft Office expert and has been working in the technical industry since 2006. As a technical expert, Bella has written technical blogs, manuals, white papers, and reviews for many websites.
SOURCE: Vodafone & Ericsson Complete a Successful Trial of Sky Corridors
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