The Connected Skies Forum, the 2019 Global UTM Association (GUTMA) Annual Conference and General Assembly, held on June 18-20 in Portland (OR) underlined the association’s realignment of its work programme towards becoming a focal point for the integration of competing UTM company data services and understanding how UTM and telecom infrastructure providers can align their business.
“The board will focus on active development of open source technical solutions of interoperability in various aspects of UTM, particularly in drone registry, remote ID, geo-awareness, USS <-> USS communication, and open FIMS, as well as effective international outreach and high-level advocacy for the industry,” said an association statement at the end of the event.
“Now, GUTMA is seen as the ideal vehicle to drive the integration of drones into national airspace systems and enable the unmanned aviation sector from technical aspect with interoperability and competitive market access in mind. As UTM systems and services are taking shape in pilot programs and demonstrations around the globe, various new actors apply to join the emerging industry. The diversity can be tackled in the current composition of GUTMA community: CAAs and ANSPs share their views with telecommunication companies, drone manufacturers, operators and UTM service providers to identify the new roles and responsibilities in the UTM ecosystem.”
The event attracted more than 200 professionals representing 122 organisations from 25 different countries. This was the first-ever event to congregate the aviation, drone, and telecommunication industries for UTM. The unique content was delivered over three days, on two tracks, in 27 sessions, pop-ups and keynotes, by 76 speakers. https://gutma.org/portland-2019
Members elected the 2019-2020 board of directors and amended the Articles of Association by transiting from hierarchical executive board to dual leadership. Reinaldo Negron (Wing) and Sebastian Babiarz (AirMap) are Co-Presidents, Lorenzo Murzilli (Swiss FOCA) is Treasurer, and Jonathan Evans (Verizon), Trent Fulcher (Airways New Zealand), Amit Ganjoo (ANRA Technologies), Jessie Mooberry (Airbus), Shinji Nakadai (NEC Corporation) and Christian Struwe (DJI) are members.
| Annual summary of GUTMA activities
GUTMA published a map of UTM initiatives for the Drone Enable 2 summit in Chengdu. The map was used to show how vibrant the UTM ecosystem is. It is still available at https://gutma.org/map . GUTMA has been active in numerous expert groups in the past year and collaborates with key influencers of global UTM: ICAO, European Commission (DG Move), EUSCG, JARUS, FAA, ISO, SESAR, EASA. A technical project manager started to work for GUTMA in mid-2018. The goal of his engagement was to provide the association with sufficient resources to not only support, but also lead, high-priority initiatives. Most of the work involved software development of open source products, available on https://github.com/gutma-org : · Revision of the Flight Logging Protocol, Flight Declaration Protocol and Air Traffic Data Protocol · Development of the Interoperable Drone Registry and Registry Borker project, demonstrated live at the Connected Skies Forum GUTMA has been dedicating special efforts to internal and external education. The “GUTMA Talks” series of webinars have become a successful initiative, exclusive to members of the association. In 2018/2019 the following sessions were organised: · Weather data, by ClimaCell and Vaisala · SESAR CORUS ConOps 1.0 for U-Space (Concept of Operation for European UTM Systems) by Eurocontrol and NATS · Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) by Lorenzo Murzilli · NASA TCL4 Preview by ANRA Technologies · Technical work and progress with protocols in GUTMA by Technical Project Manager · FIMS to USP Focus Groups Kick-off · UTM Standards Talk by ASTM, EUROCAE and ISO · GUTMA strategy workshop by Secretary General GUTMA is recognised as a think tank and main hub of international UTM professionals among the event managers of major drone- and aviation-related shows all over the world. It is an important task in international relations of the secretariat to help organisers in curating their UTM sessions and tracks. In the past year, among other smaller events, GUTMA took part in the following conferences and expos: · AUVSI’s Xponential (Chicago, IL) · ICAO’s Drone Enable (Chengdu, CN) · EASA’s High Level Conference on Drones (Amsterdam, NL) · ATCA Annual Conference (National Harbor, MD) · World ATM Congress (Madrid, ES) · GSMA’s Mobile World Congress (Barcelona, ES) Beyond these public appearances, the association organized its first live working group workshop in May 2019 at the EASA Headquarter in Cologne (DE). |
