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Last updated: 26/09/24
Maximise your estate's potential - a guide to providing land access for drone operators
Many landowners are reluctant to encourage drone flight. Some may not have a clear understanding of how they can help guide and influence drone activity from their property and view permissioning of land access as a complicated additional administrative burden. Others discourage drones because they do not know how to interact with drone operators or have areas within their estate with sensitive requirements including security, livestock or areas open to visiting public. These challenges need not be blockers to encouraging safe, approved drone flights. Using Altitude Angel’s GuardianUTM platform, estate managers can inform drone operators of their terms, policies and access requirements. It can also create a revenue opportunity and reduce the number of enquiries that need to be handled.
The commercial use of drones is set to revolutionise our lives, changing the way we work and opening new possibilities in sectors like emergency response, healthcare, mapping & surveying, logistics, filming & photography, inspection & maintenance and farming & agriculture. By harnessing the power of drones, these sectors can work with greater safety and speed, at a lower cost than ever before, whilst reducing carbon emissions and improving their green footprint. Whether you need to send a package, inspect or survey an area, drones can help you do it better.
An estate with dedicated take off and landing zone.
The GuardianUTM platform enables landowners to digitally manage land access permissions and, optionally, receive payment from drone operators for approval to take off and land as a way to cover administrative costs or generate additional revenue. The option to automate approvals or decline access and monitor flight plan conformance can also be set within the platform removing the need to manually review access requests in areas you wish to discourage flight.
Digital approval land access zone set up on GuardianUTM.
By registering land as ‘UTM Ready*’ on the Altitude Angel GuardianUTM platform a landowner can create a clear and efficient way to communicate to drone operators where they can fly from, and the rules and costs associated with gaining such approval. This information is shared on our widely-used drone flight planning tools and apps, meaning drone users do not need to contact your busy estate offices and operations teams with access or conformance questions.
Drone operator creating a flight in Operator Portal
Authorise take off and landing
Operator portal authorisation.
Drone flights can be performed in open airspace covering the majority of land not in the vicinity of built-up areas or airports, with no legal requirement to request airspace access. Drone operators who find gaining approval challenging may instead find a public area close to private land to take off and land. This results in estates having no view of who is flying at any time or having any influence. By authorising take off and landing access from specific areas on an estate, drone activity can be encouraged in areas where it is safe to fly and more easily discourage flight elsewhere.
Manage access requests
Approval Services payment portal allows for charging.
“Zones” can be set within an estate with corresponding rate cards and service levels to give flexibility on associated fees and approval response rate for access requests. For example, drone operators can be charged varying rates depending on where they want to take off and land and how soon they want to fly. Access requests can be approved, declined or changes requested with additional information so both estate managers and drone operators have full transparency and an audit trail of decisions made.
Visibility of drone activity
Flight records in Operations Manager
Altitude Angel’s Operations Manager is the interface that gives zone managers greater visibility of drone activity in their area, making it easier to manage any potential issues or conflicts. Many estates are conducting their own drone operations for surveying, security and agricultural uses, among others, and ensuring there is no conflict with your operations is more easily achieved with an enhanced view of who is flying over your land and when.
Benefits
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Manage and control access to your land
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Communicate your drone policies and access permissions to drone operators
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Understand who wants to access your land for drone flight, for what reason and when
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Automate rejections in no-access areas, helping reduce enquiries
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Set up multiple zones with different permissions and costs
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Monitor drone flights in real-time to ensure flight plan conformance
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Easy to set up digital platform that can be accessed by multiple designated admins within your organisation
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Generate revenue for your estate
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Easy payment set-up and online billing from within the Altitude Angel GuardianUTM platform
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Cost-neutral implementation options
*Unified Traffic Management (UTM) is the safe integration of drones into airspace. A 'UTM Ready Zone' is an area providing digital drone approvals.
Explore our website to learn more about GuardianUTM, or complete our form below.
