NASA creating air traffic control system for drones

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KGO) -- The drone industry is really taking off, but it has one major limitation. Pilots are still required to be able to see the drone with their own eyes while they're flying it.

But on Tuesday, ABC7 News Reporter Jonathan Bloom got a look at a new system from NASA that could soon allow thousands of drones to fly over long distances at the same time.

Pilots have flight simulators and NASA has a full-sized simulator for air traffic control. They're building a whole new kind of air traffic control, not for airplanes but for drones.

NASA's expecting millions of drones to be flying overhead in the coming years, many of them self-flying commercial drones.

Watch the video in the player above for the full story.

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