Unmanned Flight: To Be Free or Not To Be Free? A complexity based approach

This paper assesses the feasibility of organizing unmanned aviation as free flight. We do this by estimating the frequency of occurrence of large de-confliction problems. Statistics of these frequencies are measures of air traffic complexity appropriate for unmanned air traffic management. These complexity measures increase with air traffic density. Data suggests as many as 100,000 unmanned flights per day is realistic at maturity in a region such as the San Francisco Bay Area. We simulate 100 to 1,000,000 flights per day. Results suggest free unmanned flight is feasible up to 10,000 flights per day, but questionable thereafter. We also analyze a hypothetical unmanned airway network. The complexity reductions are large but optimistic. Keywordsunmanned aviation, ATM, complexity, deconfliction