Exelis to offer drone-tracking system as industry, NASA seek to ease safety fears
US aerospace company Exelis Inc is close to unveiling a low-altitude surveillance system for drones, the latest sign of how a "highway in the sky" is likely to evolve.
The system, whose existence has not been previously reported, shows how Exelis and other companies are racing to create technology that enables drones to safely fly over long distances to do everything from inspections of remote pipelines to surveys of crops or delivery of packages.
The US Federal Aviation Administration recently proposed regulations that largely ban unmanned aircraft systems from many of those tasks by requiring that remote pilots keep the drones in sight. This is giving foreign companies the chance to leap ahead of the US in figuring out how to best exploit drone technology.
But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is working with Exelis and other companies, universities and government agencies, to develop an air traffic management system that could persuade the FAA to allow flights beyond the line of sight, provided the operator is using such a tracking system.
