New Traffic System for Drones: Inside India's Plan to Manage Skies Below 1,000 Feet

Main Story

India's low-altitude skies are getting busier at a pace that existing air traffic infrastructure was never designed to handle. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is exploring a national Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) system that would oversee drone traffic up to 1,000 feet above ground level. News18 has accessed a document issued by AAI seeking global technical and operational inputs from companies capable of helping develop the proposed system — an exercise intended to help the authority understand available technologies, assess the maturity of existing UTM solutions, and determine an architecture and deployment model suited to India's requirements.

The urgency is driven by scale. Over 38,500 drones are registered with Unique Identification Numbers (UINs), and nearly 40,000 DGCA-certified remote pilots are active, while the government has approved 244 training organisations, reflecting the degree of professionalisation already underway. Drones are no longer confined to hobbyist airspace: they are already being used for surveillance, mapping, agricultural spraying and other activities, with the SVAMITVA scheme alone demonstrating the scale of integration into national programmes.

The problem with relying on conventional ATC to manage this load is structural. India's existing Air Traffic Management infrastructure is primarily designed for conventional aircraft and is not intended to handle potentially thousands of small unmanned aircraft operating simultaneously at lower altitudes — and integrating every drone directly into traditional air traffic control systems could also require costly and bulky equipment. AAI is therefore considering a largely software-driven and automated UTM framework that can monitor aircraft movements, exchange information in real time, and issue alerts when potential safety problems emerge.

The proposed UTM system would sit on top of — and tightly integrate with — the DGCA's Digital Sky platform, which already underpins drone operations across the country. Digital Sky is a unique unmanned traffic management system that facilitates registration and licensing of drones and operators, in addition to giving instant online clearances to operators for every flight. The new national UTM system will integrate with this platform, which already manages drone registration, pilot certification, and flight permissions.

A key pillar of that existing framework — and of the UTM architecture being proposed — is NPNT: No Permission, No Takeoff. NPNT describes a firmware-level lock that prevents compliant drones from arming without a valid flight authorisation file. The approval itself arrives as a digitally signed Permission Artefact generated through Digital Sky after the operator submits flight details. This model differs from traditional aviation compliance, where authorities investigate violations after the flight — India's framework moves enforcement upstream into the aircraft. As of 2026, NPNT enforcement is being gradually rolled out, with the DGCA having mandated compliance for all new drones sold after January 2024.

The proposed national UTM system would extend NPNT's logic into a broader, real-time traffic management layer. One of the proposed system's important components is geofencing, which would help ensure that drones remain within their authorised operating areas and alert remote pilots when an aircraft approaches a designated boundary. The second feature is real-time tracking, allowing authorised stakeholders to access information about the locations of manned and unmanned aircraft in a particular area — providing a more complete picture of activity in the airspace. The proposed UTM system would also include a conflict-management layer capable of identifying potential problems involving multiple drones, manned aircraft, obstacles, emergencies and other incidents.

The airspace itself is already zonally structured. Around 86% of Indian airspace is designated as "green" and open to drone operations. Yellow zones are areas where flying is permitted but requires advance permission through the Digital Sky portal, typically covering areas near airports, controlled airspace, and areas of moderate security concern. Red zones are areas where drone flying is completely prohibited without explicit clearance from the Ministry of Defence or relevant authority, including military bases, international borders, and top-security installations — and even with an approved UIN, flying in a red zone without specific permission is a criminal offence. Yellow zones also carry a vertical segmentation that is commonly misunderstood: the Drone Rules 2021 define the yellow zone vertically, covering airspace above 400 feet in a designated green zone, above 200 feet in the area between 8 and 12 kilometres from an airport perimeter, and above ground in the area between 5 and 8 kilometres from an airport perimeter.

Beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations — the category with the highest commercial potential — remain tightly controlled. Industry stakeholders are calling for a clear BVLOS framework, but currently companies can conduct BVLOS operations only with specific government approval. DGCA has approved initial drone corridors for BVLOS operations in select states — including Telangana, Uttarakhand, and Gujarat — for delivery and logistics. The Drone Federation of India, which has over 550 members, has submitted initial suggestions regarding BVLOS safety to the government, and a formalised corridor framework is widely regarded as a prerequisite for commercial-scale drone logistics.

On Remote ID — the broadcast mechanism that would make every drone visible to the UTM system in real time — India is still in a transition phase. By 2027, the DGCA plans to mandate Remote ID broadcast, likely using ASTM F3411 or ASD-STAN 4709 standards, but as of 2026, this is not yet enforced. The ICAO framework that India is aligning with treats UTM as a distinct system with a defined interface to ATM: in the immediate and near term, UTM is considered a separate system with an interface to ATM, while in the long term, integration and potential convergence with ATM is seen as a realistic solution.

The AAI's market engagement process reflects exactly that longer-horizon thinking — the RFI is a technology-assessment exercise, not a procurement tender, meaning the actual system architecture and commercial structure remain open questions as India consults the global UTM industry.

Technical Breakdown

System scope: Very-low-level (VLL) airspace from ground to 1,000 feet AGL across Indian national airspace.

Architecture approach: A largely software-driven and automated UTM framework capable of monitoring aircraft movements, exchanging information in real time, and issuing alerts when potential safety problems emerge.

Core functional components (as proposed):

• Geofencing: Dynamic boundary enforcement with pilot alerts at zone perimeters.
• Real-time tracking: Shared situational awareness for authorised stakeholders covering both manned and unmanned aircraft positions.
• NPNT integration: A strict digital permission system where drone software connects to Digital Sky, and unless flight permission is digitally granted, the drone cannot take off — with permissions geo-fenced and valid only for a specific location, altitude, and time window, with violations flagged by the system.
• Conflict management: A conflict-management layer capable of identifying potential problems involving multiple drones, manned aircraft, obstacles, emergencies, and other incidents.

NPNT firmware architecture: NPNT specifications published in the DGCA RPAS Guidance Manual provide technical guidance to manufacturers and service providers, tracking the drone's whereabouts using a Registered Flight Module (RFM) with unique identifiers for each individual drone. The RFM operates at two compliance levels: Level 0 (software-based key management on the drone's companion computer) and Level 1 (FPGA hardware with chip-level security mechanisms ensuring data and keys cannot be tampered with).

Remote ID trajectory: Planned mandate for ASTM F3411 or ASD-STAN 4709-compliant broadcast Remote ID by 2027 per DGCA roadmap.

Airspace zoning (Drone Rules 2021):

• Green: ~86% of Indian airspace; no prior permission required up to 120 m AGL.
• Yellow: Controlled airspace requiring ATC coordination; vertically segmented by distance from airports and altitude thresholds.
• Red: Prohibited without explicit central government or Ministry of Defence clearance.

BVLOS corridor status: Approved operational corridors in select states (Telangana, Uttarakhand, Gujarat) for specific commercial use cases; broader BVLOS framework under development.

Drone classification: Drones are categorised into Nano, Micro, Small, Medium, and Large, with licensing requirements scaling by weight — Nano drones under 250g require no UIN or permit for recreational use, while commercial drones above 2 kg require an Unmanned Aircraft Operator Permit and Remote Pilot Certificate.

ATM-UTM interface: Aligned with ICAO's framework, treating UTM as a separate but interfaced system to conventional ATM in the near term, with long-term convergence as a policy goal.

Industry Impact

For technology vendors and integrators: The AAI's global RFI opens the Indian UTM market to international UTM platform providers. The exercise is intended to help the authority understand available technologies, assess the maturity of existing UTM solutions, and determine an architecture and deployment model suited to India's requirements — meaning vendors who engage early can shape the technical specification. India's scale (38,500+ registered drones, 40,000+ certified pilots and growing) makes this one of the largest potential UTM deployments globally.

For drone manufacturers: The DGCA has mandated NPNT compliance for all new drones sold after January 2024, and a national UTM system will tighten this further. Manufacturers without deep NPNT and Remote ID integration in their firmware will face increasing barriers to the Indian market. The planned Remote ID mandate by 2027 — likely referencing ASTM F3411 or ASD-STAN 4709 — adds another certification layer that hardware developers must plan for now.

For commercial operators: A functional UTM system is the prerequisite for scalable BVLOS logistics. Industry stakeholders are calling for a clear BVLOS framework, but currently BVLOS operations require specific government approval, and the Drone Federation of India says this process can be slow and limits broader adoption. A formally designated, UTM-managed BVLOS corridor network would fundamentally change the economics of drone delivery, precision agriculture, and infrastructure inspection at scale.

For regulators (DGCA/AAI): The proposed UTM architecture represents a shift from per-flight manual clearances to continuous, automated airspace management. Using UTM systems in conjunction with current ATM systems is intended to optimise air traffic flow in the airspace, de-conflict movements of multiple small aircraft, and integrate automated operations. The DGCA is benchmarking this work against international counterparts: it is working on the subject in coordination with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), ICAO, and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).

For investors: The combination of a government-mandated UTM buildout, a growing registered drone fleet, a PLI scheme for domestic drone manufacturing, and an emerging BVLOS corridor framework creates a multi-layered investment opportunity — from UTM software platforms and Remote ID hardware to drone logistics operators and pilot training infrastructure. The Draft Civil Drone (Promotion and Regulation) Bill, 2025 proposes stricter penalties and a more comprehensive regulatory structure, including provisions for BVLOS operations, signalling that the legislative framework is also catching up to the operational ambition.