Digital and future ready

( Music playing )
I’m Courtney Meares-Whittey, I’m Airservices FIMS Initiative lead.
( Whirring sound of drone taking flight )
The FIMS is a Flight Information
Management System, so what It’s going to
act as is the connector between drones
and integrating them safely into
Australia’s current Air traffic
management system.

[ Bob Hammett, CEO OneSky ]
Coming to Australia, we realised the
vastness and expanses of the country, and
with that comes challenges of distance
and a dispersed population. And so Air
services and CASA have addressed that in
their strategic plans, that uncrewed
vehicles can be vehicles that help make that easier.

[ Richard Ellis, Chief Business Officer Altitude Angel ]
It enables a common
framework for all drone operations to
happen within a country, and in
particular to allow for unified traffic
management rather than segregation.

[ Mark Robinson, Head of ATM, Sales and New Business Development Frequentis Australasia ]
FIMS will play a very key role, in acting as
that link between the end users who are
flying the drones and the current ATM
system to make sure they have access to
the airspace and they're all treated fairly.

[ Luke Gumley, Head of Transformation Uncrewed Services Integration ]
To achieve our aspirations in an
integrated airspace program, we're
partnering with world leading aviation
companies, helping to solve some of the
complex problems around digitisation and
automation to deliver for our UAS customers.
As part of the prototyping activity,
we've really been able to challenge the
current state of where UTM capabilities
are. Being able to do the in-field
testing - So coming to Bunyan Airfield at
the Canberra Guiding Club, has allowed us
to get some real hands-on experience in
how the FIMS will work in the ecosystem.
It's been amazing to see different
environments from the testing we were
doing in both Sydney and Canberra to
looking at it in a rural environment.
They're very, very different requirements
for the ability of drones to operate.
connectivity, scalability. But the open
space here and the location is
absolutely stunning. In the beginning we
[ Guenther Haschberger, head of Operations Frequentis Australasia ]
struggled a little with the weather.
It was very wet the first days and we've
had very strong wind gusts, so flying was
impossible. I did get attacked by a
[ Dan Honaker, Head of Implementation onSky ]
wombat, but uh, yeah.
( Courtney laughs ) – you survived to tell the tale
I'm. I'm OK, I'm alright. Yeah.

( Music )

One of the things that we're really
focused on is this concept of uncrewed
aeronautical information management.
So taking traditional aeronautical
information management systems and
bringing it down to those lower levels.
So we're talking about, you know,
geospatial base layers such as terrain
data and building data. Doesn't matter if
you're, if you're flying a 747, uh but
definitely matters when you're down
below 400 feet.
Every country has quite a variation in
their requirements in the way they want
to interpret rules.
The frameworks within which they operate
can vary quite significantly. The beauty
of being here and being able to operate
in this environment, allows us to meld
those different interpretations
sometimes, and rule sets to figure out
what the right approach would be for the
long term for a country.
The industry is growing at an
exponential rate and the technology is
very fast-paced. One of the challenges is
going to be legislation and regulation
moving at the same pace. Airservices now
get the chance to shape the product and
the solution they get at the end of this
activity and to make sure it meets the
Australian standards and requirements
for the industry.
The biggest challenge as we bring these
new air vehicles to the market, is
ensuring the regulators and the general
public that we can do this safely, right?
So this is the last thing we want to
do is have, you know, new vehicles that
are out there and, and have some safety
or risk concerns. I think we also need to
quickly demonstrate the social value and
social utility, so that they'll be more
accepting of the capabilities. We really
want to be able to support the fast
growth of this industry, and we want to
ensure that we're doing that while
maintaining the high safety standards we
see an aviation.

[ Luke Gumley, Head of Transformation Uncrewed Services Integration ]
With the number of drones we're seeing
in our skies today and the projections of
Urban Air mobility just around the
corner, we're looking to deliver on
integrated airspace, moving from
segregated operations to truly
integrated operations.

( music )