DigitalSky Platform

DigitalSky is essentially an India’s Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management System.

DigitalSky platform provides end-to-end governance of drones related activities in India. This platform is used by drone community, like drone manufacturers, pilots, and operators to register and apply for various permissions and permits etc. from various authorities from Government of India.

The Unmanned Aircraft System ("UAS") market in India is growing rapidly. In order to tap into the opportunities in this space, India must regularly guide technology standards and upgrade its policy framework accordingly.

The UAV technology has myriad use cases relevant to India for application in areas such as healthcare, security, agriculture, energy etc. to name a few. India already has a significant number of operational UAVs, which are most likely to grow in numbers at an exponential pace. To support this emerging and promising technology, a strong regulatory framework is essential to ensure that the technology proliferates in a sustainable manner without any unintended consequences. To this effect, a Civil Aviation Requirement (CAR) was issued by the DGCA which lays down the fundamentals for UAV operations in India. With the issuance of the rules, there is expected an exponential growth of Drones adoption in India. To support such growth, India will require a strong technology platform for governance of Drones. In this regard, DigitalSky platform is envisioned to provide end-to-end governance of drones related activities.

DigitalSky enables a proactive approach to enforcement of safety and security guidelines by ensuring that a UAS does not take-off without a signed digital permission from DigitalSky and necessary flight logs and occurrence reports are reported back to DigitalSky.

The Key objective of DigitalSky are as follow: • Registration and Approvals: Allow manufacturers and pilot to obtain permits and licenses online. • Permissions: Provide online approvals for drone’s flights without manual intervention • Enforcement: Enforce drones flight activities as per approvals and compliance requirements • Compliance Vigilance: Undertake continuous checks through analytics to ensure overall compliance.

Also, DigitalSky comprises of the following 3 key distinguished categories of activities namely:

1. Pre-Flight: Related to permits (organizations/manufacturers), license issuance (pilots), registration (drones), categorization of Airspace on Digital Maps (no-fly zone, free zone, semi restricted, etc.)
2. Take Off: Related to flight permits; includes considerations to airspace availability, digital approval certificate (to be uploaded into the drones for take-off, geo-fencing)
3. Post Flight: Actual Flight Path Data Analysis, Data Analytics on Potential Threats/Safety Issues, Noncompliance Checks, Enforcements, AI based Data Authenticity Validation, etc.

The following are the envisaged stakeholders for DigitalSky:

1. Drones Operators
2. Pilots
3. DGCA
4. AAI
5. Training Organizations
6. Other Government Agencies