NASA Zipline Pursue m:N Drone Ops

NASA recently signed a Space Act Agreement with San Francisco-based Zipline “to pursue a future vision of U.S. aviation that includes delivery drones and air taxis,” says the NASA announcement.

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The agreement will help NASA to explore the concept of one pilot operating multiple drones, which they refer to as m:N operations.  In order for commercial drone operations like widescale delivery or security to scale economically, the industry must be able to move away from the concept of one pilot per aircraft.  NASA is working with the aviation and drone industry to understand both the applications and the processes for these operations.

“These collaborations are quite important,” said Kelley Hashemi, the technical lead for autonomous systems at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. “It’s critical for NASA to gather the community’s input in order to achieve meaningful progress towards this future vision of U.S….