“We have two challenges ahead of us: social accessibility and air risk.” - With this reminder Lorenzo Murzilli, Co-founder and CEO of Murzilli Consulting, opened the second panel of Aerial Cities 2025.

The second panel of our invite-only, C-level event, which took place in Dublin from 11 to 12 November 2025, centred around the readiness of cities to accommodate drone technologies, drone corridors, vertiports and eVTOL operations.

The audience heard the expert voices discuss both the obstacles and challenges in urban planning, permissions, digital airspace infrastructure and public education for drone integration.

The panellists included:

  • Malachy Bradley (Deputy City Planner at Dublin City Council)
  • Michael Robbins (President and CEO of AUVSI)
  • Thomas Jimenez (VP of Uncrewed Aerial Systems at uAvionix Corporation)
  • José Javier Rodríguez Hernández (Deputy Director of Traffic Management and Taxi Service at Madrid City Council)
  • Dr. Hrishikesh Ballal (Founder and Managing Director of OpenUTM Ltd)

Deploying aviation-grade ground infrastructure

Opening the discussion, uAvionix's Thomas Jiménez offered a concrete look at the ground sensor infrastructure already being deployed across the United States and the UK to support safer drone operations and BVLOS drone integration.

Thomas explained that uAvionix, originally an avionics manufacturer for general aviation, now operates across four verticals: general aviation, defence, UAS and airports. Their city work is centred on deploying ADS‑B ground sensor networks capable of detecting cooperative aircraft with aviation-grade performance, a cornerstone of safe drone integration in urban airspace.

Thomas said the Federal Aviation Administration was currently the company’s largest customer at the time, using this high-availability, low-latency data for applications such as surface awareness at airports. He stressed that if drones are to be safely integrated into complex airspace, the same aviation-grade safety standards must apply to UAS operations too.

He also acknowledged the growing debate around electronic conspicuity and affordability. Aviation-grade sensors are essential, but smaller, lower-cost conspicuity devices could unlock scalable BVLOS business models, enabling more operators to equip aircraft without the excessive costs associated with traditional aviation systems.

“It’s not scalable to litter a city with radar,” he noted, emphasising the need for smarter, cost-effective detection solutions that still meet required safety thresholds.

He added that cities need “precision where it matters, not blanket coverage that nobody can afford” and that the challenge ahead is “building a safety net that matches aviation expectations without aviation-level infrastructure everywhere.”

Balancing innovation with the urban environment

The panel then shifted to the realities of urban planning for drones and UAM, with Malachy Bradley, Deputy City Planner at Dublin City Council.

Malachy began by noting that planning in Ireland is both a national competency and the main public touchpoint for infrastructure decisions. As a result, Dublin City Council often becomes the public’s first stop for drone-related queries, even though no specific drone land-use policy yet exists.

“Whenever a land use has an impact on a citizen, their first engagement is with the planning authority. So, we already have extensive engagement on drone usage, even without having a specific land use policy,” he said.

He described the careful balance between supporting drone innovation and safeguarding residents, particularly around drone noise, privacy, airspace safety and environmental impact. Planning, he said, is inherently a process of managing competing priorities.

“In the planning space, it’s always contestable. You’re trying to balance different points of view for the greater societal good. There seems to be quite a collaborative space at the moment between industry and institutions. I think there’s a pathway through,” he added.

The planner argued that cities must rethink building design for a future where drones deliver to rooftops, vertiports integrate into new developments, and drone operations coexist with traditional urban life, especially in a city adjacent to a major international airport.

Madrid’s white paper: a pragmatic, business-case-first strategy

Madrid’s perspective was provided by José Javier Rodríguez Hernández, who had been coordinating the city’s drone work and recently completed a comprehensive Urban Air Mobility White Paper outlining Madrid’s strategy.

The White Paper serves as a full roadmap identifying Madrid’s regulatory needs, operational constraints, municipal drone use cases, U‑Space preparation, safety and security requirements, and the infrastructure needed as drone operations scale.

José stressed that cities want a seat at the regulatory table: “We feel that this topic is being discussed without taking into account the view of the cities.”

Madrid recognised that U‑Space will not arrive overnight, and the White Paper outlines how the city will prepare for operations both with and without U‑Space. While some cities are “very easy for deployment of eVTOLs,” Madrid is not.

His core message to industry:  bring real business models, instead of demonstrations.

“The technology may be there, but if there’s no business case, there will be no drones in the city. We need to start doing things and learning from mistakes… the small but real things. If we wait until we are 100% safe and everything is 100% in place, we’ll be doing this in 10 to 15 years. We must be pragmatic.” - he said.

Safety first, policy second

Michael Robbins, President and CEO of AUVSI, offered an industry‑wide perspective emphasising that safety is the foundation of all drone and BVLOS integration, and that policy must be built from evidence.

He noted that the industry’s long-term viability depends on well-constructed safety cases because any lapse harms public trust across the entire drone ecosystem.

Robbins also highlighted the rising number of BVLOS approvals in the U.S., almost 700 FAA waivers, enabling thousands of BVLOS drone flights for infrastructure, agriculture, emergency response and healthcare.

In this context, waivers are special FAA approvals that allow operators to fly beyond visual line of sight under strict safety conditions. They each generate more evidence that BVLOS drone operations can be conducted safely and at scale.

AUVSI had been working with U.S. states to establish drone policy frameworks covering vertiport requirements, electric charging infrastructure and harmonised UAS regulations. Robbins stressed these frameworks must remain free from political interference.

“Safety shouldn’t be political, and we cannot accept preventable air-to-air collisions in 2025,” he said.

Digital airspace as national infrastructure

The final speaker, Dr Hrishikesh Ballal, founder of OpenUTM, brought both a technical and an urban-planning lens to the discussion.

Calling himself an “airspace maximalist,” he emphasised that large‑scale BVLOS drone operations were already happening globally, especially in Africa and China. Europe and the U.S., he argued, needed to begin planning at the same scale.

He framed Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems as the digital equivalent of highway ramps, essential interfaces connecting vehicles, operators and authorities. To accommodate digital aviation, cities need secure, interoperable, standards-aligned digital gateways.

OpenUTM’s open‑source approach provided this through transparent, fully auditable systems for BVLOS drone operations. On planning, he was clear: planning systems must evolve rapidly if cities expect to enable widespread urban drone flights.

Dr Hrishikesh praised city officials pushing boundaries but warned that national frameworks must empower planners rather than restrict them.

On safety concerns around open‑source technology, he stressed transparency as a strength:

“With open source, nothing is hidden. You can audit it, verify it and trust it. That’s a strength, not a weakness. You’re not relying on a black box. You can see exactly how the system works, and that transparency is what makes it safer. Open source gives authorities full visibility. They can inspect every part of the system instead of taking it on faith.”

The long game of aerial mobility

Taken together, the panel made clear that the future of aerial mobility will not hinge on a single breakthrough but on the steady alignment of technology, regulation and city planning. Air risk remains the defining technical challenge, yet meaningful progress can still be made through real operations over demonstrations, targeted precision over blanket coverage, and incremental progress over theoretical perfection.

In short, the future of aerial mobility will be shaped less by what drones can do and more by whether cities are equipped and willing to integrate them responsibly into everyday urban life.

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