SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Envisioning a day when millions of drones will buzz around delivering packages, watching crops or inspecting pipelines, a coalition is creating an airspace corridor in upstate New York where traffic management systems will be developed and unmanned aircraft can undergo safety and performance testing.

The unmanned aircraft traffic management corridor [phys.org], jump-started by a $30 million state investment, will extend 50 miles (80 kilometers) west over mostly rural farmland from Griffiss International Airport, a former Air Force base in Rome that is already home to NASA-affiliated drone testing.

It will be equipped with radar and ground-based sensors to enable what Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo boasted would be "the most advanced drone testing in the country."

The first segment of the corridor was launched last month by the Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance, a coalition of private and public entities and academic institutions in New York and Massachusetts created to establish Griffiss as a drone industry incubator.

Rome, NY? That's no fun. Why not over Chappaqua [housebeautiful.com]?

Original Submission