The most transformative leap in aviation will not come from a new aircraft.

It will come from a new way of thinking about airspace itself.

For decades, our skies have been organized in silos, divided by function and ownership – military aviation here, civil aviation there, commercial drones somewhere else, and counter-UAS systems operating in the shadows.

Each domain evolved in isolation with its own systems, protocols, priorities, sensors, rules, and command structures.

That siloed approach delivered progress, but it also introduced risk. When aircraft, sensors, and command systems cannot speak the same language, airspace becomes dangerous, harder to defend, and easier to exploit.

We saw the consequences of that fragmentation in January 2024, when an enemy drone reportedly infiltrated a U.S. military base in Jordan by following one of our own drones through the perimeter in order to attack Tower 22, a logistics outpost near the Syrian border, killing three American soldiers and injuring dozens more. Counter-UAS systems were uncertain whether the enemy drone was friend or foe because there was no shared information set between the base’s air traffic control system and its defensive network.

That tragedy exposed a hard truth: when airspace systems cannot share a common operating picture, even sophisticated defenses can be rendered uncertain by the most rudimentary threats at the worst possible moment.

The same dynamic now threatens civilian airspace at home. Commercial and civil drone activity is expanding rapidly around airports, cities, critical infrastructure, and major events. When a drone appears without clear identification or intent, airports slow or stop operations. Delays cascade. Risks rise. And if intent is malicious, the consequences can be far worse.

If our skies are going to become busier, they must also become smarter—and more integrated.

From Fragmentation to a Shared Airspace Reality

Today’s air traffic systems were designed for crewed aviation. Small uncrewed aircraft often do not appear on traditional radar or Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B displays). As a result, air traffic controllers frequently learn about potential hazards through slow, late and imprecise visual reports. Meanwhile, counter-UAS systems—often deployed for legitimate protection—may emit effects that air traffic controllers cannot see or account for in real time.

This is not a technology gap. It is an integration gap.

When airspace systems can ingest data from ground radar, ADS-B, commercial sensors, UAS telemetry, and counter-UAS networks, and fuse that information into a single and secure operating picture, the entire dynamic changes. Hazards are detected earlier. Intent is easier to assess. Compliant aircraft fade into the background. Airports keep moving safely and efficiently.

That integrated model is no longer aspirational. It is operational.

That’s exactly what we’re doing in Springfield, Ohio, where we’ve launched a new Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) airspace management capability at the National Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence (NAAMCE) at Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in partnership with the Air Force and Ohio Department of Transportation in collaboration with CAL Analytics.

We are proving that BVLOS operations can be executed safely, predictably, and at scale by routing diverse surveillance and flight data through a unified command-and-control (C2) architecture. The result is a living, real-time view of shared airspace—one that treats crewed aircraft, uncrewed systems, and defensive operations as parts of the same ecosystem.

This is not a demonstration site. Pending regulatory approval, it is an operational blueprint for how airports, states, and federal regulators can manage integrated airspace nationwide.

Ohio is developing sophisticated UAS Traffic Management (UTM) capabilities to safely enable commercial drone delivery and future air taxi operations for companies like Amazon and Uber—where scaling these services depends on collision-free integration with helicopters and other low-altitude aircraft. Getting that integration right does more than improve safety; it opens the door to meaningful economic growth and provides a practical blueprint for managing the increasingly crowded skies communities across the country will soon face.

A New Model for Shared Airspace, Our Approach

The expansion of BVLOS operations depends on Ground-Based Detect and Avoid (GBDAA) and space-based surveillance working in concert with existing air traffic infrastructure.

1. GBDAA systems monitor the airspace using ground and satellite-based sensors and provide real-time situational awareness and maneuver guidance to UAS operators, significantly reducing the risk of collisions. 

2. GBDAA can complement or provide an alternative to onboard systems, offering broader surveillance capabilities and covering larger operational areas. 

3. GBDAA systems can leverage existing Air Traffic Control infrastructure and Commercial Off the Shelf Sensors (COTS) sensors, as a cost-effective, scalable solution for further integrating drones into the National Airspace System. 

By integrating federal and local surveillance feeds, flight intent data, and environmental information into a common platform—AV_Halo™ COMMAND (C2 system) and CAL Analytics’ Advanced Air Mobility (AAM)—operators can safely separate aircraft, avoid conflicts, and transition from segregated to fully integrated airspace operations.

What makes this approach novel is the paradigm shift to a modular, data-driven architecture designed to seamlessly distribute real-time information across a scalable set of interrelated airspace services.

This is how we’ve broken out of the silos and stove-pipes, allowing multi-sensor tracking and fusion to provide the situational awareness needed to detect, classify, and track crewed and uncrewed aircraft across wide areas, while the airspace-management layer translates that awareness into coordinated separation, alerting, and oversight across jurisdictions.

This integrated architecture allows Ground-Based Detect and Avoid to function as a true enabler of scaled BVLOS operations rather than a collection of localized safety tools.

The result is a GBDAA framework that scales from individual operations to regional corridors—supporting safe integration, consistent decision-making, and the data foundation required for broader BVLOS adoption and policy evolution.

From Proof to Policy, Enabling the Economy

This collaboration isn’t theoretical. The AV_Halo COMMAND architecture is already going through operational approvals in Ohio and also in North Dakota, where it will support detect-and-avoid conflict-alerting missions for both military and commercial operators in our work with GrandSKY UAS Flight Operations Center.

GrandSKY serves as a living testbed for integrating military and civilian drone operations into the National Airspace System, leading the Department of War’s Project ULTRA by conducting real-world logistics and cargo flights between military bases to stress-test, validate, and refine UAS traffic management in mixed-use airspace. AV and CAL Analytics’ solutions are also advancing through the FAA’s near-term approval process, undergoing the full rigor of safety risk management review.

Our work in both Ohio and North Dakota is building the data and policy foundations for nationwide BVLOS operations—a future where uncrewed systems can fly beyond the horizon as safely as manned aircraft do today.

These deployments are generating what policymakers need most: real operational data. Data that informs standards. Data that accelerates rulemaking. Data that turns “can we?” into “how fast?”

Living testbeds like Ohio and North Dakota—where military and civilian operations coexist—are shaping the future of UAS traffic management and logistics corridors. They are stress-testing policy in real airspace, not in simulation, and laying the groundwork for national BVLOS integration.

What is at stake is not convenience. It is national resilience.

The ability to defend critical sites, move supplies, support emergency response, and unlock new economic activity depends on shared, resilient airspace infrastructure. Fragmented systems cannot scale to meet that demand. Integrated systems can.

Breaking down the silos between civil and military aviation, between safety and security, between innovation and regulation is no longer optional. It is foundational.

The future of American airspace will be defined not by who owns the sky—but by how well we share it.

About the Author

Stephen Lloyd is a Senior Director, C2 & Tracking Systems at AeroVironment, where he leads development of AV_Halo for air-traffic control, BVLOS drone operations and counter-UAS applications. He retired from the Federal Aviation Administration after a 40-year career, having held senior roles in air traffic operations, safety management systems and the National Airspace System. A former chair of the FAA ATO Safety Committee, he collaborated closely with the National Transportation Safety Board and later joined the Air Force Research Laboratory SkyVision GBDAA team. His contributions have been recognized with awards including the 2019 ATCA Civilian Team Award and the 2020 AUVSI Excellence Award in Technology & Innovation.

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