OpEd – Quantum-Enhanced Right of Way: Manned-Unmanned Skies in Harmony in a Brave New World

by Fahad ibne Masood, MRAeS

In the year 2030, the population density of urban areas will cause rush hour to be a time of extreme congestion. Electric air taxis will be working to transfer a large number of passengers to and from various vertiports, and dozens of electric drones will be working to deliver packages in a greatly reduced time. Meanwhile, conventional manned airplanes, alongside all of the other air traffic, will be operating in the area. This is the vision for the future of aviation and advanced urban air mobility (UAM). 

Still, there is a downside to this type of development. There will be a “chaos shadow.” The airspace right of way problem remains very complicated. It does not accommodate the projected reality of millions of drones and manned aircraft operating without any disturbance to each other. 

In my opinion, the FAA’s position that drones must give way to manned aircraft is as comical as it is outdated. Instead, let us, with surgical precision, analyze how the future could be shaped by quantum computing. With quantum computing, the equilibrium of airspace will have “priority” burdens lifted progressively.

As with any discipline, air traffic control (ATC) has a number of interrelated complexities and nuances. Consider a classical computer trying to grapple with the complex problems of high winds and thunderstorms at altitude, different sized aircraft, climb rates and pilot exhaustion. The conflicts extend beyond the simple scenario of two aircraft. In such congested airspace areas, the challenge becomes exponentially worse. 

The FAA’s Visual Line Of Sight (VLOS) rule for “see and avoid” as a foundational premise collapses completely in the Beyond VLOS (BVLOS) world. And bureaucratic frameworks stifle creative thinking. 

One aircraft commanding a swarm of drones would generate a cascade of delays and fuel wastage bounded by such a rigid framework. It is not a question of logistics. It is the absence of realism. Mixed traffic situations are a major danger to already-weary pilots stressed by the weather. Society pays the price, too. The underutilized airspace increases the time to respond to emergencies. This convoluted flight routing increases the price of goods. The current ecological inefficiency of course-plotting is unacceptable.

Quantum computing (QC) disentangles such disorder. In contrast to bits, which can only hold a classical value of either 0 or 1, qubits exist in superposition and traverse multiple problem domains at once. This includes the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA) and the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE), which address Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimisation (QUBO) problems. They represent airspace as a graph with flights as nodes and possible collisions as edges. This is a strength of the hybrid quantum-classical approaches. 

Classical systems handle the refinement of primary routes, whereas quantum systems (e.g. D-Wave Quantum Annealers) in the background perform “real-time” control to dynamically manage flows and minimize “costs” which include delay, fuel and time. Air traffic management, NP-hard problems of scheduling, flight routing, rostering etc. can also be solved with better-than-heuristics approaches using these quantum computers. 

Imagine a thunderstorm over Chicago. Quantum systems could optimize vectors in the cloud-burst-like and wind-shear scenarios. This accounts for equitable batteries for electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and Effort-Equity algorithms for pilots. This is done so that equitable shifts, and not only alterations for drones, would be provided.

Achievements in the field help in convincing the doubters:

• Fraunhofer Institute uses an optimized drone path that processes through weather and geography. It claims to guarantee collision free drones. 
• Zena Tech uses quantum for AI-controlled drone fleets in its Sky Traffic program, providing public safety oriented urban flow optimization. 
• NASA uses quantum annealing to separate the routes through the Combiner at Ames Research. Sumitomo Japan managed to quantum-route numerous UAM drones with zero collisions in 2021 simulations.
• Thales and collaborative European research projects work on the quantum sensing of ATMs to improve navigation in thicker drone no-fly zones.

More recent 2025 breakthroughs, such as the QUAV’s (Quantum-assisted UAV’s) QAOA do scalable avoidance for UAV paths, using the quantum with classic blender for risk avoidance optimized routes. 

Socially, this raises safety risk management as a common value. Predictive machine learning on traffic patterns allows quantum to avert crises, thus protecting communities from the possible horrific consequences. 

Policy-wise, the Part 108 BVLOS rule from the FAA is already due for a ‘quantum’ evolution before it’s even published. Maybe QC insights will allow the FAA to shift from “drone yields” to equity-based dispersal where it remains a fair system using quantum computing to manage airspace, balancing drone and manned aircraft movements. Instead of drones always ‘giving way’, QC calculates real-time adjustments—like tweaking a plane’s speed or a drone’s altitude—to avoid collisions, ensuring no pilot or operator is unfairly burdened, like a smart traffic light for the sky.

Countries investing in QC, will flourish and gain competitive edges in the near, as well as the distant, future. The U.S. military, for example, is reviewing quantum for surveillance drones. China’s advances in hybrid algorithms improves their international competitive productiveness. Optimized airspace is surely due for the U.S.’s commercial ‘$100-a-minute-daily’ drone delay cost as well.

The integration of quantum computing into airspace management, while promising, raises significant ethical and technical concerns that demand careful scrutiny. 

A primary worry centers on the fragility of hybrid quantum-classical devices, which remain highly susceptible to noise (environmental factors like electromagnetic fields, temperature, vibration etc.) and errors due to the nascent state of quantum hardware. Even now, advanced systems like IBM’s Condor or D-Wave’s Advantage processor struggle with decoherence, where environmental interference disrupts qubit states, potentially leading to inaccurate flight path optimizations. Such errors could cascade in dense airspaces, risking miscalculated routes that compromise safety for both manned-unmanned aircraft. 

Ethical concerns in quantum computing further amplify these risks, particularly with the evolution of machine learning algorithms integrated into hybrid systems. These algorithms, while powerful, can introduce biases, such as prioritizing certain aircraft types or operators based on data patterns. This could potentially marginalize smaller operators or less-resourced regions. This raises questions of fairness in airspace access, especially in global contexts where regulatory frameworks differ. 

Additionally, the opaque nature of quantum-enhanced machine learning models complicates accountability. If a conflict resolution fails, tracing the decision back to a specific algorithmic step is nearly impossible. This could erode trust among pilots, regulators and the public. 

Privacy issues also loom large, as quantum systems processing vast datasets (e.g., pilot rest logs, weather data) could inadvertently expose sensitive information if not securely managed.

Addressing these challenges requires robust error-correction protocols, transparent algorithm design and international standards to ensure equitable and safe adoption of quantum technologies in aviation.

Nevertheless, QC right of way insights would allow airspace to be a dynamic and ever-evolving system. The entire airspace should be working similar to a living organism… humanistic, malleable and pragmatic. By harnessing quantum computing, we can transform airspace into a dynamic, equitable system that prioritizes human safety risk management and operational efficiency while navigating technical and ethical hurdles. There is a defined shift in the approach to the development of this tech. It is no longer a mere upgrade of machinery, but a technological arc which ensures protection of humanity, while constantly moving upwards, towards the skies.