Altitude Angel launches next-gen airspace management solution for airports

Altitude Angel, the world’s leading UTM (Unified Traffic Management) technology provider, today announced it is bringing to market a next-generation airspace management solution – GuardianUTM Enterprise – an intuitive, cost-effective platform which will initially be deployed to support regional and local airports and airfields.   

GuardianUTM Enterprise provides a combined view of the airspace in the vicinity of airports and offers a ‘one-stop’ solution to enable the airport to start designing and providing UTM Services for drone companies and drone operators, using Altitude Angel’s proven digital authorisation and flight management technology.  

Furthermore, ahead of the EASA U-Space Regulations which are expected to become law from 1 January 2023, GuardianUTM Enterprise is designed to enable airspace authorities to digitise approvals for drone operations using services integrated with CIS (Common Information Service) and USSP (U-Space Service Providers) architectures. 

Using GuardianUTM Enterprise, airports can easily set access policies and create automation workflows which are accessible via Altitude Angel’s UTM ecosystem and used by hundreds of thousands of drone pilots, manufacturers and software companies daily.  In doing so, this guarantees the airport the best available view of the sky and nearby drone operations, ensuring a growing sector of the aviation market is able to access the new airport UTM Service. 

For larger airports with counter-UAS solutions, data from on-site surveillance systems can be optionally integrated to give airport security staff greater situation intelligence which is a critical step in encouraging greater drone use. 

The solution can be rapidly deployed and configured for airports of any size; providing a flexible platform for enabling drones to be safely integrated in the airspace around these facilities: a crucial step in unlocking a wide variety of unique use-cases for drones. 

Key features of GuardianUTM Enterprise include: 

• Digitalisation of pre-flight and take-off approvals to drone operators within airspace.  
• Offers high levels of automation, including customised automated access policies and approval workflows of unmanned operations. 
• Supports UTM Service Discovery via Altitude Angel’s developer platform – a capability which allows 3^rd party vendors to create integrated services which can locate and submit access requests in a standardised format, globally. 
• Integrates with existing surveillance infrastructure to improve aerial monitoring of all airspace users within the airport’s vicinity, adding intelligence to existing counter-UAS solutions. 

Simon Wynn Mackenzie, Altitude Angel, VP Products said: “We’re excited to be making the solution generally available, giving airports and airfields across the globe the chance to have an even fuller picture of the airspace they manage and an option to welcome safely integrated drone traffic into their operations. When designing the solution, we analysed common ‘pain points’ of airports and ensured they were addressed. We wanted to ensure we created something airports and airfields needed to support them in integrating and scaling unmanned operations safely; something which can grow with their operational needs both now and well into the future. 

“The solution we’ve created can be introduced easily and gives users instant visibility over the sky they manage and an interface which can be exposed to the drone industry. Plus, those wishing to utilise drone services will have a mechanism to see which airports are ‘UTM Ready’. With an easy-to-use operational interface for airport operators which requires minimal training and no additional on-site hardware to be deployed – but with the option at larger airports to integrate with existing electronic flight management systems, the intuitive ‘top-down view’ allows airspace managers to clearly distinguish authorised and unauthorised drones in real-time and take appropriate action.” 

Built on cloud infrastructure, GuardianUTM Enterprise is continuously updated with the latest and most accurate aeronautical data available and draws on data from Altitude Angel’s growing ecosystem through its real-time connection to Altitude Angel’s GuardianUTM Cloud. The platform also offers uncompromising scalability and security, with the ability to scale airspace regions, and to offer increasingly complex digital approval and even automated workflows as operational capacity expands and new drone services develop.