City-ATM – Live Drone Trials with Dynamic Geo-fencing

The project City-ATM, launched by the German Aerospace Center DLR in 2018, aims to integrate new airspace users like unmanned aerial vehicles into uncontrolled airspace. An air traffic management and traffic flow control concept was developed. The phase 1 demonstration in 2019 showed a bridge inspection featuring, amongst other concept elements, the flight of several drones in a limited area, beyond visual line of sight operation, strategic flight planning taking into account strategic geo-fences and tactical conflict detection. This paper describes the concept of phase 2 that is based on the hard- and software infrastructure of phase 1. The original concept was extended to allow dynamical creation of geo-fences protecting areas around danger spots. The extended concept and first results from preliminary flight trials are described.