With the  prospect of commercial drones buzzing around our heads becoming more and more real, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is developing a new kind of air traffic control system that addresses the unique needs of the low-altitude aircraft.

News of the agency initiative came last week as Google unveiled Project Wing, an experimental program that could deliver goods to remote or inaccessible locations using propeller-driver vehicles that fly just 200 feet off the ground.

Because drones fly at such low altitudes, they face very different perils from other aircraft. For example, strong winds can easily blow them off course or into the side of a building. Drones also need to navigate obstacles like trees, power lines and flocks of birds, not to mention mischief-makers who try to bring them down. And should a drone need to land unexpectedly, it must find a safe location without the benefit of much time.

In an interview with the New York Times, Dr Parimal H. Kopardekar, who manages NASA’s NextGen-Airspace Project, said widespread use of drones is probably at least five years away, but that he hopes to “see some action inside of the next year” in the fields of asset monitoring and agriculture, where drones could track crop development or examine infrastructure in lightly populated areas. He said concepts like Project Wing and Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drone schemes could take longer to materialize, but may be viable within a decade.

Google says it’s taking the long view and working to beef up its drones’ ability to avoid bumping into things. Google won’t be able to fly its drones in the US until the FAA changes its policies, though, as business use is currently prohibited.

That may change one day though. NASA has been looking into drone safety for some time now, having put out a call for proposals on its autonomous flight system in 2012.

Image credit: Hans via Pixabay.com