By Clark Perry There could be 7 million UAS vehicles flying in U.S. airspace by the year 2020, according to the FAA. It’s a staggering number, especially when it comes to safely managing all that air traffic. To get a sense of what the skies may be like in just a few years, imagine the following scenario: firefighting aircraft are racing to the scene of a wildfire, only to find their air path strewn with municipal UAS vehicles inspecting power lines, hobbyists capturing vacation footage with the latest off-the-shelf drone from Best Buy, and Amazon Prime’s local drone fleet launching to make their daily deliveries.

As a part of a national campaign to test NASA's unmanned traffic management research platform, UAS operations were conducted at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia during the week of June 5, to test technology that is designed to allow multiple aircraft to safely share the same airspace. The test flights were designed to “mimic what operators might encounter if widespread commercial UAS flights beyond line of sight become commonplace.” During the test flights, multiple aircraft carried out several different simulated missions simultaneously. The aircraft communicated with NASA’s central cloud-based platform using different software interfaces, which allowed them to respond to changes in the airspace.

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Intelligent Flying Machines has developed a UASthat warehouses can use for inventory upkeep and management. The UAS are currently in their testing phase, with plans to go commercial next year.   The plan of IFM is for companies to deploy several of their UASinside of a warehouse, and those UASwould be tasked with scanning isles and collecting various pieces of information. The UASare designed to operate autonomously, and once they complete their missions, they can land without any human supervision or oversight to recharge. The information that the UAScollect will be sent to a cornpany's inventory software and cross-referenced with company data, and errors and alerts will be sent to tablets for workers to check at the beginning of their shifts.