Nokia and the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority have announced that they are entering into a strategic collaboration to develop end-to-end ecosystem to support regular commercial use of an unmanned aerial system (UAS) in the UAE. Nokia’s unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Traffic Management concept will give GCAA ability to track and manage all UAS in UAE airspace, supporting use of automated drones for both commercial and government applications.
This Project will enable the UAE to become the world’s first country to allow UAS usage in safe and secure environment and embrace drone technology as part its initiative to make Dubai one of the smartest cities of the world by 2017. Nokia’s UAV Traffic Management (UTM) concept, which is being developed to manage drones in and around cities, and coordinate their interactions with people, manned aircraft and an increasingly diverse array of connected objects.
The Nokia UTM system will provide capabilities such as automated flight permissions, no-fly zone control and beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) that are critical for the safe operation of UAVs in densely populated urban areas. Nokia’s UTM also makes full use of its expertise in the area of 4G LTE ,5G, Mobile Edge Computing and related services to provide a platform that has extremely low latency, and exceptional reliability and resiliency needed to manage UAV traffic.
Bernard Najm, head of the Middle East Market Unit at Nokia, said: “The UAE is committed to making Dubai the smartest city in the world, and UAVs are expected to play a critical role in this process by supporting a wide variety of smart city services. This collaboration with the GCAA, the first of its kind in the world, gives us a unique and extensive test bed where we can trial and refine our UAV Traffic Management system, and shape the future of UAV management overall. This is an exciting opportunity that builds on our strong relationship with the UAE to help facilitate its smart city journey.”
Ismaeil Mohammed Al Blooshi, Assistant Director General of the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority, said: “We, as a civil aviation regulator, are pleased to partner with Nokia for such an innovative initiative for the UAE aviation sector and to build a safe and secure drone ecosystem. Being the number 1 aviation industry in the world with regard to safety standards, the UAE has superb aviation infrastructure and is qualified to play a key role in innovative aviation projects such as this drone collaboration.”
