UTM CONOPS v2

I got through the Federal Aviation Administration #UTM CONOPS v2 and was excited to read the section on Performance Authorizations, which will enable scalability. Unfortunately, I was surprised to find a major gap in the document. Once a Performance Authorization has been granted, how are the assumptions that went in to granting the Authorization verified to still be intact during the operation? On the Army GBSAA System, which was approved for BVLOS operations by the FAA in 2016, we had to have a robust health and integrity monitoring capability to verify all safety critical components were operating at an acceptable capacity at all times. This same capability is going to be needed any time a Performance Authorization is granted. While not explicitly stated (it should have been!), the FAA is not going to accept that functionality was tested once and therefore it is safe for routine operations. Enter ResilienX ...

Our view of the latest UTM CONOPS v2 is that a robust UTM Ecosystem will enable rapid Performance Authorizations. These are likely to start with Authorized Areas of Operation that resemble corridors such as those being developed in NY (by NUAIR ) and in OH (by the Ohio Department of Transportation ). ResilienX is monitoring the health and integrity of these ecosystems to verify that the real-time performance of the system matches the performance that was authorized. We believe that a layer of Contingency Management (that ResilienX is developing), and is not addressed in the latest CONOPS, is how to manage adverse situations where the system performance does not meet the Performance Authorization specifications.

Here's hoping v3 addresses this oversight!