UTM Chair at the Airspace World 2025: The Intersection of Robotics, AI, and Biotechnology for Research on NextGen UTM

On May 12th, the UTM Chair team from ENAC took the stage at Airspace World 2025 in Lisbon, alongside industry leaders Sopra Steria and Airbus, to present how we’re reimagining the way drones will fly over our cities soon. Our mission? To make urban air traffic smarter, safer, and more efficient—with a touch of innovation and a lot of teamwork.

We demonstrated how our team uses advanced simulations to model how drones could navigate busy city airspace. Whether it’s just a few drones or an entire swarm flying together, we’re developing the tools to manage, plan, and guide flights safely, even in complex environments.

Visitors at our booth got a glimpse of our collision avoidance algorithms, a smart way to ensure drones don’t bump into each other in the sky. Think of it as virtual air traffic control tailored for urban drones.

Cyclic Corridor Concept (C³)

One of the highlights of our presentation was the Cyclic Corridor Concept (C³). Imagine a roundabout in the sky, looping through a city to connect drone landing spots (called vertiports). This design enables all drones to use the same shared routes, making the system fairer, faster, and easier to manage.

We explored two innovative approaches to bring this concept to life:

• Artificial Intelligence
  We’re training intelligent agents to design the smartest circular flight paths, staying close to vertiports while avoiding high-risk areas such as crowded zones, noise-sensitive neighbourhoods, and restricted airspaces.

• Nature-Inspired Design
  Inspired by how slime moulds naturally spread to find optimal paths between food sources, this approach applies a similar logic. It generates more complex and adaptive patterns with strong potential to dynamically adjust the cyclic airspace corridor on demand.
  Matthieu worked hard on it and we’ll share more about this bio-inspired method in our next post this June!

Collaborative UTM

Representing Sopra Steria, our ATM/UTM expert collaborator Yannick Seprey highlighted the importance of:

• collaboration between service providers
• clear communication and real-time data sharing
• building public trust and social acceptance of drones in everyday life

We showed that even if different drone operators use different technologies, they can safely share the same airspace, thanks to interoperable systems that work together behind the scenes.

What’s Next?

Our technical research papers will be available in September 2025, offering detailed insights into the C³ concept and our simulation results.

Drones are coming. And we’re working hard to ensure their arrival is safe, fair, and beneficial for all.

📍 Presented by:
Murat Bronz (ENAC) | Rodolphe Frémond (ENAC) | Yannick Seprey (Sopra Steria)
📅 Event: Airspace World, Lisbon – 12 May 2025