Google and AirMap Team Up On New Remote ID Solution for Drones

For wide-scale commercial operations to take place, a cost-effective industry-led network remote identification solution is needed to give transparency and ensure accountability of all parties involved. This will help regulators stay in compliance with aviation rules and cultivate the public’s trust in operations beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) and over people while protecting drone operator’s and drone consumer’s privacy.

With one step closer to enablement, AirMap recently teamed up with fellow UAS Services Suppliers (USS) Google Wing and Kittyhawk.io to demonstrate a remote ID application integrated with the InterUSS Platform™ – an open API used for separate USSs to communicate with each other during drone operations.

Using Drone Aware, AirMap’s augmented reality remote identification app, bystanders were able to automatically identify the drones flying in their area. They simply pointed their smartphones towards the drone to capture its exact location, identity, and telemetry, in real-time. See below for further details on the demonstration.

This demonstration showed that network remote identification is a solution that is viable and ready today, and can be deployed quickly and securely without the need for developing new government or airspace management infrastructure. Public safety and law enforcement will increase safety in their respective fields significantly. Also, the general public will be able to utilize AirMap’s features for not only planning out their fleet navigation but maintaining a high level of security for their flights.

The Demo in Detail

The demonstration involved three operators and three UAS (2 DJI and 1 Wing Delivery). Each operator logged into their respective USS (Wing, AirMap, and Kittyhawk) with a validated identity.

Each operator requested airspace access authorizations for their flights via their respective USS LAANC capabilities. Wing, AirMap and Kittyhawk.io are all LAANC providers.

When the remote identification display applications were launched, the InterUSS platform was used to discover which USS were operating UAS flights in the area. Each USS provided relevant UAS data and the aggregated set was provided to both the Wing and AirMap remote identification applications. This allows for data sharing only as needed, providing a complete picture without the need for a single entity to have access to drone operations everywhere.

AirMap, Wing and Kittyhawk.io used industry standard authentication (OAuth 2.0) and security (HTTPS) for communications to the InterUSS platform and between USSs. LAANC already provides OAuth 2.0 authentication, and those credentials (or similar) can be used to authenticate communication between USSs and to the InterUSS platform.