Enabling Centralized UTM services through cellular network for VLL UAVs

In this work, we present a low-cost small onboard Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) concept allowing Very Low Level (VLL) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operators to access to a various type of centralized services such as e-identification, flight tracking, dynamic geo-fencing and automated flight restriction/permission with multi-level link redundancy that meets the requirements of future flight operations for small UAVs. The presented low-cost system provides ADS-B-like positional information broadcasting through the cellular network (i.e. 3G, 4G or LTE) out-link, which makes small UAVs visible for traffic controllers and other operators enabling continuous tracking and collaborative sense-and-avoid. The system further provides short-range information broadcasting, which uses standardized 63-byte data frame, through a wireless link for multi-level redundancy.