
Amazon, Google, Others Are Developing Private Air-Traffic Control for Drones - eplanit
https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-google-others-are-developing-private-air-traffic-control-for-drones-1520622925
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londons_explore
This is a really good idea. I'd like to see some kind of REST api saying "Can
I enter this X,Y,Z bounding box?", and then when getting back a HTTP 200 OK, a
followup request can then be sent saying "I'm now out of this other XYZ
bounding box".

As the skies get crowded, craft could even "rent" their airspace by the cubic
meter. If you're a craft which can guarantee to be in a smaller space and fly
close to other craft, like formation flying, you use up less airspace and save
money.

Something like this for big planes would save massive amounts of fuel, because
algorithms could be used to match flight patterns with weather maps to get a
tailwind or uplift, rather than having a pilot having to manually ask ATC over
the radio and then being forced to fly in a straight line at a fixed altitude
as most planes do today.

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xg15
It might also _cost_ large amounts of fuel when planes would have to take
completely nonsensical routes to go around a scatter of tiny, blocked airspace
areas everywhere.

Additionally, people might start to "squat" the airspace around airports and
along preferrable routes and "rent" them to airlines at an increased price.
(Or, if they are a competitor or have other reasons to damage the airline,
simply block it and don't rent it at all)

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londons_explore
I feel like an economist could solve this problem...

The "tiny blocked airspaces everywhere" problem is really how do you design an
efficient market.

Perhaps for example, just because you have a piece of airspace doesn't give
you the right to keep it. Someone else can come along and outbid you for it
auction-style. That way, anyone squatting will have to pay handsomely to do
so.

Obviously all the routing and bidding and allocation is done automatically and
the pilot is just given a route to fly. While there is no shortage of
airspace, most bids would probably be fractions of a cent anyway.

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xg15
> * Someone else can come along and outbid you for it auction-style.*

Maybe I misunderstand your model, but which entity would run the auction? And
who gets to collect the winning bids?

In the previous post, I assumed the whole market was to be a thing between the
airspace participants while the air traffic authority just keep track who has
blocked which part of the airspace. Would the authority now also conduct the
auctions?

> _That way, anyone squatting will have to pay handsomely to do so._

I'm not an economist, but I don't see why the squatters couldn't have deep
pockets.

Squatting for political/strategic reasons might be done by airlines themselves
- who might have large enough war chests to play games. (If the goal is to
keep certain competitors out, they might not even need to win the auctions -
driving up the price enough so that continued bidding becomes unviable would
be enough)

If squatting for profit is viable, there might appear speculators who use
credit/investor money to stay in the aucton.

> _While there is no shortage of airspace, most bids would probably be
> fractions of a cent anyway._

My suspicion is that, just like land on the ground, different areas of
airspace would have vastly different value. For drone/airtaxi/etc
participants, airspace above big cities would probably be very valuable -
while long-distance flights need to choose the best route, while taking
distance across the globe, jetstreams, weather, distance to nearest airports,
etc into account.

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NelsonMinar
One precedent for this is FLARM, the air traffic system designed by glider
pilots in Europe. It was one of the first systems deployed where aircraft had
GPS equipment broadcasting their positions to each other. Developed privately
and first deployed voluntarily.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLARM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLARM)

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mooneater
> talk to each other through web-based applications

using web for this seems a bit heavyweight

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ocdtrekkie
I would characterize this as a "when you're a hammer, everything looks like a
nail" thing. If you ask web companies how to have some devices communicate,
it's pretty likely they're going to come up with a web platform.

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eftychis
Still too much.

It's like taking a bus to a race. Are they going to provide their own
hardware? If yes go and improve the existing indicator system and then sell it
back to FAA/airports. If not, I am going to get popcorn and watch as they kill
our cell phone coverage.

I am not sure cell towers can take the extra load. I know I am rushing, but
wait till instead of Fedex running around you see 1 drone per package, zipping
through cells.

P.S. I think all these companies only care to get the FAA to sign off and
allow package delivery (or spying, I mean "data collection" \-- who knows). I
feel they will come up with a clunky system that people are going to hate for
years.

P.S.2: Didn't say anything about security or fairness considerations. I can
easily see Amazon blocking a wide path for their drones and be like, we paid
for it we get to use it bugger off.

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icebraining
The extra load doesn't seem that much. It's a few more subscribers, but the
data rates should be quite low. And if you have a swarm of drones, you could
use a couple as hotspots for the others.

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neurotech1
Non-paywall archive version:
[http://archive.is/76nw0](http://archive.is/76nw0)

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anonu
I wonder if the current outdated air traffic control system will eventually be
folded into this new system being built.

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iamdave
Wat is it about the current system that makes it outdated, and what would 'the
future' (for lacking a better descriptor) look like to you?

Not here to be the voice of dissent for its own sake, merely an aviation
enthusiast.

