French Airport Adopts Thales’ TopSky-UAS for Unmanned Air Traffic Management

Air Traffic controllers at Rennes airport in Brittany, France, have adopted Thales’ TopSky UAS, a cloud-based platform for unmanned air traffic management (UTM).

TopSky-UAS entered service at Lille airport in Northern France in May 2021.

The solution makes the flight request process more efficient, helping drone operators to gain easier access to airspace.

The DSNA launched the "U-Space Together" initiative in response to the growing number of drone operations and the continuing need to ensure safe, efficient airspace management.

TopSky - UAS automates analysis of the regulatory compliance of planned flight data, interfaces with France's national register of drone operators (AlphaTango) to verify the data entered, and manages the process of reviewing flight requests in line with local protocols. This automatic analysis function enables drone operators and air traffic controllers to concentrate on the operational aspects of the flight requests, simplifying administrative procedures, reducing error rates and lightening the workload of the different groups of users.

TopSky - UAS includes specific user interfaces for air navigation services and administrative services, and is interoperable with third-party solutions such as the Clearance application for drone operators. Thales and the air navigation services at Lille and Rennes will also explore tactical functions including drone tracking in flight and alert procedures if an unmanned aircraft deviates from its approved flight path.