Vega UTM — Airspace Management Platform
Desktop And Tablet
Project Background
Vega UTM is an airspace management platform designed to help authorities and operators manage drone flight requests, approvals, airspace activity, and operational oversight
When I joined the project, Vega was still a very early and limited product. I led the UX/UI work that helped turn it into a much larger and more complete platform — redesigning the product experience, creating a new visual language, defining core workflows, and adding major features that did not exist before
The work included flight approvals, airspace monitoring, operational dashboards, user and organization management, analytics, permissions, and complex regulatory workflows
My goal was to transform Vega from a small initial product into a scalable, clear, and professional platform that could support real operational use in a complex airspace environment
Alongside the UX/UI and product work, I created the product’s visual language in Figma, including the UI direction, illustrations, visual assets, and supporting graphic elements — shaping the experience from early concept to final design.
My Role:
Lead Product Designer / Product Design Manager
Tools:
Figma, FigJam, Adobe Photoshop
Date:
2025–2026
Airspace Overview Dashboard
A central dashboard for airspace managers to understand what is happening across the system at a glance.
The dashboard brings together live airspace activity, pending flight approvals, organizations, users, drones, restricted areas, daily operational data, and communication tools. Instead of forcing users to move between multiple sections to understand what needs attention, the dashboard surfaces the most important information in one clear overview
As part of the Vega UX/UI work, we designed this screen to become the main starting point for decision-makers — helping them review requests faster, monitor the airspace, identify pending actions, and navigate easily into the deeper operational areas of the platform
UTM Airspace
The core airspace view in Vega, designed to give airspace managers and approvers a real-time operational picture of drone activity.
This screen brings together live UAV locations, flight statuses, restricted areas, no-fly zones,
notifications, conflicts, and detailed drone information on one interactive map. Users can
inspect specific drones, understand what is happening at a location, review alerts, and
monitor the overall state of the airspace.
This was one of the first core areas of Vega, but it evolved significantly during the product
work. We expanded it from a limited initial view into a much richer operational workspace
that became the foundation for many of the platform’s later capabilities.
The goal was to help users understand the airspace quickly, identify risks or conflicts, and make safer approval and monitoring decisions in real time
Flight Status Overview
To support faster decision-making, we added an interactive status summary at the top of the airspace map. Users can quickly see how many flights are ongoing, approved, declined, or in conflict.
The dropdown allows users to drill down into each status, search by organization, and review relevant flight requests directly from the map context. This makes it easier for approvers to understand workload, identify conflicts, and focus on the flights that require attention.
Weather & Airspace Layers
A weather and map-layer system designed to support safer flight approval decisions.
Because weather conditions are critical for drone operations, we added contextual weather data directly into the airspace map, including wind, rain, visibility, altitude-based conditions, current weather, hourly forecasts, and weekly views.
We also designed a flexible layer panel that lets users turn different airspace information on and off, such as geo zones, restricted areas, weather layers, flight radar, ADS-B, and map types.
The goal was to help approvers understand not only where a drone wants to fly, but whether
the surrounding airspace and weather conditions are safe enough for the flight.
Manual Approval - Flight Approval Workflow
A manual approval flow that helps airspace approvers review, approve, decline, or request changes for drone flight requests.
The workflow organizes requests by status — waiting, approved, and declined — and allows users to open each flight to review its operational details, airspace context, required documents, conflict reasons, and Vega’s recommendation.
We designed this flow to make the approval process clearer and more structured, so
approvers can understand each request quickly and make safer decisions with the right
information in front of them.
The system also supports more complex cases where multiple flights belong to one project,
including documents, payment status, approval history, and project-level review.
Drone & RID Registration
A drone registration and management flow that allows users to add, view, edit, and manage registered drones and their RID information.
We designed the section with both list and grid views, so users can scan drones in the way
that fits their workflow. Each drone has a dedicated detail page with key information such as
manufacturer, model, serial number, tail number, and RID connection.
The goal was to create a clear and structured way to manage drone assets inside Vega,
making it easier for organizations and approvers to keep track of registered drones and the
information required for flight approvals.
Analytics Dashboard
A data dashboard designed to help airspace managers understand operational trends and safety performance across the airspace.
The dashboard brings together key metrics such as completed flights, safety occurrences, flight types, incidents over time, organization activity, air time, altitude, BVLOS percentage, and safety events.
The goal was to turn operational data into a clear overview that supports monitoring, reporting, and better decision-making across the UTM system.
Outcome
Vega evolved from a small initial product into a much broader airspace management platform, with new UX flows, a redesigned visual language, and major features built almost from scratch.
The product supports multiple user types — including drone operators, flight approvers,
airspace managers, organizations, and administrators — each with different responsibilities,
permissions, and decision-making needs.
Across the platform, we designed workflows for airspace monitoring, flight approvals,
project-based flight requests, drone registration, RID management, weather and map layers,
notifications, documents, payments, and operational history.
The selected screens shown here represent only part of the full product, but they reflect the
main UX challenge: turning a complex regulatory and operational system into a clear,
scalable, and usable platform for real-world drone operations.