The Australian government is to develop an air traffic control-style system for drones, which will be created in collaboration with Defence, Airservices and CASA.

The announcement was made as Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack unveiled a new policy statement on the matter and promised to invest $35.7 million into the emerging aviation technology.

“The jobs, the economic stimulus and other social benefits drones could have for industries such as agriculture, as well as regional communities, are transformational,” Deputy PM McCormack said.

Plans for a Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) system were one of the key pillars of the government’s National Emerging Aviation Technologies (NEAT) (Reference: Australiaaviation.com.au)