The technical foundation, in 40 pages.
A long-form description of the VerSky™ protocol — its motivation, mechanics, claims, and adoption strategy. Currently in draft; final v1.0 ships when it's ready.
What this whitepaper proposes.
Air traffic management as practised by ICAO assumes manned aircraft cruising at flight levels with voice radio and fuel reserves. That set of assumptions breaks down completely below 500 metres — where a million drones, eVTOLs, and hobbyist quadcopters will operate within a decade.
VerSky™ is an open protocol for low-altitude airspace built around a single architectural insight: altitude can encode direction. By dividing each altitude band into six hexagonal direction sectors, conflicts are resolved by geometry rather than by negotiation — except at intersections, where vehicles negotiate peer-to-peer with deterministic fallback.
The protocol is the subject of two non-provisional US patent applications filed February 27, 2026 (Application Nos. 19/551,620 and 19/551,624). The reference implementation will be released in Phase 2 under Apache License 2.0 with patent grant — explicitly enabling adoption by drone manufacturers, aviation regulators, and standards bodies.
This whitepaper documents the seven principles, the two patents' claim structure, the API surface, comparison with classical ATC, use cases, adoption roadmap, and standards-body engagement strategy.
- 1. Altitude encodes direction
- 2. 4D space-time reservation
- 3. Hex-cell capacity
- 4. Speed scales with altitude
- 5. Priority by purpose
- 6. Fail-safe = descend
- 7. Digital-only infrastructure (no physical beacons)
Each principle is detailed in §4 of the whitepaper.
v0.9-preview · 40 pages.
Selected sections are previewable below. Full PDF download arrives with v1.0.
Altitude encodes direction.
The semicircular rule (ICAO PANS-OPS, dating from the 1950s) divides the sky into two halves: aircraft heading 000°-179° fly at odd flight levels, 180°-359° at even. The rule works because there are only two opposing streams — manned aircraft cruising at altitude.
At low altitude, where vehicles can hover, ascend vertically, and pass within metres of buildings, a two-direction scheme is insufficient. VerSky extends the principle to six discrete direction sectors per altitude band, mapped to the six faces of a hexagonal cell:
A vehicle observing another vehicle at +20m offset can immediately infer it is heading approximately east, without needing to query a central authority or wait for the other vehicle to broadcast. Direction is communicated by physics rather than by message.
Continued in §4.1 — Direction-class boundaries; §4.2 — Altitude-band ceiling negotiation; §4.3 — Mixed-altitude transitions.
Full PDF when it's ready.
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