FAA has $6 million in matching funds available for new UAS test site partnerships

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it will partner with qualified commercial companies who can match the agency’s $6 million pledge to perform vital drone integration safety work at the FAA’s UAS test sites.

“The FAA intends to bridge the gap between industry and the test sites to tackle some of our most difficult technical and operational challenges,” said Acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell today at the FAA UAS Symposium in Baltimore.

The June 3 Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) states that applicants must be able to match the federal funds they request through this program. A company has to demonstrate an existing contractual relationship with or show that FAA funding would enable it to enter into a contract with a test site. Companies must have the technical capability to work on these essential integration technologies:

• Develop and enforce geographic and altitude limitations (Geo-fencing);
• Provide for alerts by the manufacturer of an unmanned aircraft system regarding any hazards or limitations on flight, including prohibition on flight as necessary;
• Sense and avoid capabilities (DAA);
• Beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations (BVLOS);
• Night time operations;
• Operations over people;
• Operation of multiple small unmanned aircraft systems;
• Unmanned aircraft systems traffic management (UTM);
• Other critical research priorities; and
• Improve privacy protections through the use of advances in unmanned aircraft systems technology.