According to Sher, AIFE, in collaboration with aviation industry stakeholders, has embarked on an initiative to draft a position paper for unmanned traffic management, also known as advanced air mobility in SA.
The consortium is exploring concepts of operation, information exchange requirements, and a supporting framework to enable multiple unmanned aerial systems operations by identifying services, roles/responsibilities, protocols, software functions and infrastructure requirements for enabling the management of low-altitude unmanned aerial systems operations.
The impact-driven paper will focus on the local market and its unique challenges and potential to help support the local ecosystem. “It seeks to develop and launch a thought leadership position paper in 2022 that will become the platform to ignite the industry ecosystem to develop the industry, help create businesses, jobs and economic growth in SA. The question is not whether drones are good for a particular industry; rather it’s – is there an industry that cannot benefit from drones?”