MIAGERU

6G-Enabled Low‑Altitude Airspace

What is this project?

An NSF- and NICT-sponsored research collaboration advancing safe, scalable low‑altitude airspace. We leverage nationwide cellular networks for sensing and communications to enable reliable UAS operations, beyond visual line of sight. Our goals include safety assurance, interoperability, and integrating UAS into the National Airspace System.

Research Thrusts

Networked sensing, cooperative tracking, and airspace services integrated with 6G cellular infrastructure to improve surveillance, navigation, and safety assurance for drones operating at low altitude.

Demonstrations & Deployments

Field deployments and pilot programs at urban and suburban sites in Japan and the United States to evaluate cellular-enabled detect‑and‑avoid, command‑and‑control (C2), and UTM/USS integrations in real environments.

Open Data & Tools

We publish datasets, reference architectures, and open-source utilities to accelerate research, standards development, and technology transfer.

Project at a Glance

5

Institutions

4

Pilot Sites

Coming

Publications

Coming

Open Datasets

Sponsors and Partners

This research is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant ITE-2554414 under the NSF 25-539 VINES Program (Track 2)) and the National Institute Of Information And Communications Technology of Japanese. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF or NICT.

This is a collaboration between Virginia Tech (lead institution), NEC, NTT e-Drone Technology, Kuwadate Ltd, and Nexcepta