Operating system
UTM
Skyy Operating System is allowing its participants to jointly and constantly update a single state of truth for the sky, to be used as the single reference and information support for traffic management by all participants.
Our Operating System includes four modules: Flight Information Management System (FIMS), Policy & Regulatory, Economics and Risk Management.
The Fims Module
Transparent and trustworthy by design
Based on blockchain technology, the FIMS module uses today’s availability of abundant computational power to create a decentralized system, where each USSP/USS runs one or several Nodes. Each Node, literally simultaneously with all other Nodes, dynamically creates shares, uses, stores, and updates the single state of truth about the sky which allows for seamless traffic coordination. It is a deterministic system: using the same input to update the same (latest) state of truth about the sky, each and every Node will generate, independently, the same output and update the state of truth in the same way, also independently, thus providing consistency and therefore rock-solid traffic safety.
Our product is trustworthy because the information is transparently shared and verifiable with proven cryptographic methods and therefore known to be true. Consumers and contributors to the data are unable to manipulate or corrupt it, thanks to state of the art network consensus.
It can alternatively be described in several ways: a system where everybody is the referee; or a system where everything happens in plain view (of entities with the appropriate credentials) and cheating is either impossible or extremely costly; or a system where the action is both individual and collective through simultaneity.
The code and consensus rules are open source and in the public domain, permitting robust auditing, peer review, and formal verification processes to be established.
Public/Private key cryptography is leveraged to maintain pseudonymity overstate changes (airspace volumes), providing a privacy layer, whilst certified authorities can leverage permissions via multi-signature cryptographic signing methods to track accountability and access authorization. All state changes can be transparently audited, providing valuable provenance and a clear airspace picture for aviation authorities and government cost recovery.
By design, the Skyy architecture supports transparency so it will be easy to embed and coordinate rules around prioritization and negotiation, and ensure that the revenue associated with delivery is auditable.
FIMS Functionalities
- Government rules, including new or temporary rules, such as on priority, to be instantaneously applicable to all approved flights for the duration of their existence.
- Public authorities with an appropriate right-to-know, have real-time full knowledge of who flies where, and of flight status, allowing them to carry out any responsibility, from drone traffic management to public safety, security and enforcing privacy legislation.
- Public authorities, at central, regional or municipal level, will be able to use the accurate, time-stamped, immutable flight log for monetization of 'sky space-time use', for audit purposes or for incident investigation.
- Automated flight deconfliction, at both strategic (before flight) and tactical (during flight) level for all flights in the covered U-space/UTM area, irrespective of the USSP/USS managing them.
- Automated operational risk assessment for flight applications.
- Strategic (cyber)security ensured by network design and tactical security by government-approved and inspected security standards of individual service providers' network nodes. Skyy Network is 'Byzantine Fault Tolerant' by design, meaning that it will remain secure and consistent even if up to one third of the network nodes fail in arbitrary ways. This makes it extremely resilient to any attack: it is by its very design much more secure than any centralized system, which only needs to be hacked once to be brought to a halt or cause severe accidents.
UTM
Skyy Operating System is allowing its participants to jointly and constantly update a single state of truth for the sky, to be used
as the single reference and information support for traffic management by all participants.
Our Operating System includes four modules: Flight Information Management System (FIMS), Policy & Regulatory, Economics
and Risk Management.
The FIMSModule
Transparentand trustworthy bydesign
Based on blockchain technology, the FIMS module uses today’s availability of abundant computational power to create a decentralized system, where each USSP/USS runs one or several Nodes. Each Node, literally simultaneously with all other Nodes, dynamically creates shares, uses, stores, and updates the single state of truth about the sky which allows for seamless traffic coordination. It is a deterministic system: using the same input to update the same (latest) state of truth about the sky, each and every Node will generate, independently, the same output and update the state of truth in the same way, also independently, thus providing consistency and therefore rock-solid traffic safety.
Our product is trustworthy because the information is transparently shared and verifiable with proven cryptographic methods and therefore known to be true. Consumers and contributors to the data are unable to manipulate or corrupt it, thanks to state of the art network consensus.
It can alternatively be described in several ways: a system where everybody is the referee; or a system where everything happens in plain view (of entities with the appropriate credentials) and cheating is either impossible or extremely costly; or a system where the action is both individual and collective through simultaneity.
The code and consensus rules are open source and in the public domain, permitting robust auditing, peer review, and formal verification processes to be established.
Public/Private key cryptography is leveraged to maintain pseudonymity overstate changes (airspace volumes), providing a privacy layer, whilst certified authorities can leverage permissions via multi-signature cryptographic signing methods to track accountability and access authorization. All state changes can be transparently audited, providing valuable provenance and a clear airspace picture for aviation authorities and government cost recovery.
By design, the Skyy architecture supports transparency so it will be easy to embed and coordinate rules around prioritization and negotiation, and ensure that the revenue associated with delivery is auditable.
FIMS Functionalities
- Government rules, including new or temporary rules, such as on priority, to be instantaneously applicable to all approved flights for the duration of their existence.
- Public authorities with an appropriate right-to-know, have real-time full knowledge of who flies where, and of flight status, allowing them to carry out any responsibility, from drone traffic management to public safety, security and enforcing privacy legislation.
- Public authorities, at central, regional or municipal level, will be able to use the accurate, time-stamped, immutable flight log for monetization of 'sky space-time use', for audit purposes or for incident investigation.
- Automated flight deconfliction, at both strategic (before flight) and tactical (during flight) level for all flights in the covered U-space/UTM area, irrespective of the USSP/USS managing them.
- Automated operational risk assessment for flight applications.
- Strategic (cyber)security ensured by network design and tactical security by government-approved and inspected security standards of individual service providers' network nodes. Skyy Network is 'Byzantine Fault Tolerant' by design, meaning that it will remain secure and consistent even if up to one third of the network nodes fail in arbitrary ways. This makes it extremely resilient to any attack: it is by its very design much more secure than any centralized system, which only needs to be hacked once to be brought to a halt or cause severe accidents.
The Policy & Regulatory Module
The Policy& Regulatory Module
Partnership for the future drone economy
Skyy encourages partner governments wanting to create an industrial policy to benefit from the future Drone Economy to use a regulatory sandbox approach to foster its development.
This is done without prejudice to safety, security and any area of public policy, in line with best international practice in innovation-supporting jurisdictions.
Skyy provides customer governments with a full, tailor-made policy suite. This includes existing legislation and policy, and legislation and policy in-the-making in major jurisdictions, notably the European Union and the United States, plus expertise and advice on how to best adapt those solutions to the local circumstances of the country, and possibly go beyond them. Each policy suite is created in interaction with local policy makers, in order to integrate their level of ambition, specificities and priorities. Skyy can also support customers in identifying the best companies and expertise in areas not covered by Skyy itself, in order to develop fully-fledged drone ecosystems in the partner countries.
The Economics Module
The EconomicsModule
Drone economy on market principles
The sky is already an important economic resource, as the medium where manned aviation operates. However, with the advent of the Drone Economy, the economic and social importance of the sky will increase exponentially, as it will ‘host’ a new revolution in services that will dramatically change our economies for the better.
At the same time, the sky is obviously a limited resource, physically and economically. These limits become ever more meaningful and indeed constraining as traffic density grows. Skyy Network has created an Economics concept allowing for the government-certified service providers to pay proportionately to their use of network resources, so that pricing of services canhappen on market principles.
It also creates the right set of incentives for all actors to respect the rules, and it penalizes excessive or abusive behaviour (for instance abusive advance booking of space) while allowing for commercial flexibility to service providers and operators. The sky is already an important economic resource, as the medium.
It also creates the right set of incentives for all actors to respect the rules, and it penalizes excessive or abusive behaviour (for instance abusive advance booking of space) while allowing for commercial flexibility to service providers and operators.
With ‘security by design’ being a key principle of the Skyy Network, the Skyy Economics concept, too, is rooted in the principle of ‘indivisibility of security’, whereby all certified service providers are equally responsible for sustaining the network, and they are compensated by the other participants for ‘positive net work’ done for them, with constant netting and settlement happening throughout the network.
The perfectly accurate, time-stamped and immutable traffic data, or ‘airspace-time consumption’, is available for use by the national or local government to tax or otherwise monetize drone traffic, according to local rules to be created as the drone economy takes off.
Risk Management Module
Risk ManagementModule
Cutting edge research for a safer sky
Before any flight, risks must be considered in the air and on the ground. Today, assessing those risks for drones is very expensive and time consuming for both Aviation Authorities and Operators.
The Skyy Network Operating System is, at its heart, a Risk Management solution.Skyy Network is breaking new ground by producing cutting edge research that delivers quantitative data to where it is needed. Data permits rule making and policy evolution, enabling a safer sky and more drone operations.
Air Risk
The Skyy Network Air Risk module builds on the foundations of the JARUS SORA framework, but extends capability to quantitative data delivery for Airspace Characterisation in both static and (soon) near real time scenarios. ‘Aircraft encounter rates’ are established and mapped against a ‘target level of safety’, and then used to inform policy. This policy shapes the requirements drone operators need to meet to enter the airspace – the ‘when’ and ‘how’ a drone may enter the airspace. Clear and direct guidance to operators drives innovation forward, accelerating the drone economy.
Ground Risk
Fundamental to aviation operations is the safety of people on the ground. A key variable required to measure risk to persons on the ground is population density. With increasing population density, the need for reliable systems that keep drones in the sky becomes paramount. Skyy Network research informs policy on risk thresholds and onboard equipment appropriate for the ground based risk. Smart algorithms compute safety buffers around mission specific scenarios for the safe operation of the drone. This timely data is delivered to the stakeholders that need to know for both risk management and compliance.