Why this is important to Wisconsin businesses: The technology is being used for applications including package delivery, agriculture, oil and gas, and defense.
In 2018, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study valued the emerging global market for remotely propelled aircraft system (RPAS) business services at over $127 billion. The market’s growth is based on the transition from military use to personal recreational use, and from there to large-scale commercial usage. The RPAS market in Canada has seen significant growth in consumer, commercial, agriculture, oil and gas, and defense applications. In the commercial space, the concept of package delivery, now done by vehicle, is transforming to view RPAS as a cost-effective replacement or augmentation option. Companies such as Uber, UPS, FedEx and Amazon are all testing different RPAS systems for deployment in the near future. Not only would RPAS assist in faster package delivery, it would also help reduce road traffic congestion and emissions.
RPAS traffic management (RTM) is an air traffic management ecosystem of services that underpins these applications. Another name for RTM is unmanned aircraft systems traffic management (UTM). These systems can manage remotely piloted aircraft operating in Canadian airspace. They have features like RPAS tracking, remote identification and conflict resolution.
Recognizing the growth of this industry and the need to manage the corresponding traffic infrastructure, Transport Canada has put out an initial call for proposals, intended as the first in a recurring series seeking products and technologies in this space.
Transport Canada is looking for proposals from innovators that will help set the requirements for, and the deployment of services needed for, Canada’s RTM system. This is expected to be the beginning of a series of calls looking for more and more sophisticated and complex proposals, as services and technologies are tested and developed further. Learn more and access the call for proposals: https://www.tc.gc.ca/en/services/aviation/drone-safety/drone-innovation-collaboration/remotely-piloted-aircraft-systems-rpas-traffic-management-services-testing-call-proposals.html