Tāwhaki Aerospace Centre deploys AirShare UTM system to advance uncrewed aircraft operations in New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand is tak­ing fur­ther steps to advance uncrewed air­craft oper­a­tions and be at the lead­ing edge of air­space inte­gra­tion, with the deploy­ment of the Air­Share uncrewed traf­fic man­age­ment (UTM) sys­tem at Tāwha­ki Nation­al Aero­space Cen­tre. 

Imple­ment­ing the UTM sys­tem devel­oped by Air­ways at the mul­ti-use facil­i­ty near Christchurch marks the com­ple­tion of the first phase of a col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment between the two organ­i­sa­tions, to help advance the fast-grow­ing aero­space sec­tor in New Zealand.

Jus­tine Whit­field, Air­ways Inter­na­tion­al Head of Prod­ucts, said: “We’re pleased to have already com­plet­ed the first joint project with Tāwha­ki under our col­lab­o­ra­tion agree­ment, with Air­Share going live.”

“We’re look­ing for­ward to work­ing with dif­fer­ent oper­a­tors to inform the role of UTM in Aotearoa New Zealand, sup­port­ing future scal­a­bil­i­ty and the safe inte­gra­tion of emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies in the air­space sys­tem.”

Tāwha­ki Joint Ven­ture is a part­ner­ship between the New Zealand Gov­ern­ment and mana when­ua (indige­nous peo­ple) for Kaitorete – Te Tau­mu­tu Rūnan­ga and Waire­wa Rūnan­ga. Tāwha­ki weaves togeth­er mātau­ran­ga Māori (indige­nous knowl­edge), research, sci­ence, cut­ting-edge aero­space tech­nol­o­gy and envi­ron­men­tal reju­ve­na­tion for the ben­e­fit of its peo­ple and plan­et.

It estab­lished the Tāwha­ki Nation­al Aero­space Cen­tre at Kaitorete, a mul­ti-use facil­i­ty sup­port­ing a wide breadth of aero­space activ­i­ties includ­ing advanced avi­a­tion, engine test­ing, weath­er bal­loon deploy­ment and hor­i­zon­tal space launch.

The site just out­side Ōtau­tahi Christchurch boasts a sealed run­way, hangar facil­i­ties, drone areas and dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture, and is scal­ing up for ver­ti­cal launch and renew­able ener­gy.

Stan Top­ping, Tāwha­ki Head of Aero­space, says the roll­out of the Air­Share UTM will not only ben­e­fit its cus­tomers but the wider sec­tor as a whole.

He added: “Col­lab­o­rat­ing with Air­ways and util­is­ing their UTM sys­tem is a great addi­tion to the dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture we pro­vide for test­ing, devel­op­ing and oper­at­ing new aero­space tech­nolo­gies at the Tāwha­ki Nation­al Aero­space Cen­tre. Not only will it enhance our oper­a­tors’ expe­ri­ence, it will also gen­er­ate cru­cial insights for inno­va­tors, pol­i­cy mak­ers and reg­u­la­tors.

“This will help inform what’s required from a mod­ern air­space sys­tem to realise the ben­e­fits of advanced avi­a­tion in Aotearoa and around the world – from sus­tain­able, cost-effec­tive trans­porta­tion to con­nect­ing remote com­mu­ni­ties and dis­as­ter respons­es.”

Air­Share enables Tāwha­ki to facil­i­tate all uncrewed air­craft oper­a­tions at the cen­tre, through its flight infor­ma­tion man­age­ment sys­tem (FIMS) and uncrewed air­craft ser­vices includ­ing flight autho­ri­sa­tions and pilot com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Air­Share also enhances sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness by pro­vid­ing a pic­ture of air­space activ­i­ty at and around Tāwha­ki.

Advanced UTM fea­tures will be tri­alled at the cen­tre, with input from oper­a­tors, Tāwha­ki and Air­ways to gath­er data on how UTM sup­ports the devel­op­ment of a mod­ern, safe air­space that serves all users.

Air­ways Inter­na­tion­al is the com­mer­cial arm of Air­ways New Zealand – pro­vid­ing UTM, train­ing, ATC sim­u­la­tion, dig­i­tal solu­tions, aero­nau­ti­cal infor­ma­tion man­age­ment, pro­ce­dure design and avi­a­tion con­sul­tan­cy ser­vices glob­al­ly to air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice providers (ANSPs), air­lines and air­ports.

Air­Share UTM sup­ports air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice providers and oth­er air­space man­agers to safe­ly and effi­cient­ly man­age uncrewed traf­fic; enhanc­ing sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness and reduc­ing ATC work­loads through digi­ti­sa­tion.

Air­ways is New Zealand’s air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice provider, safe­ly man­ag­ing more than 500,000 flights through one of the world’s largest air­space.