Cellular aerial vehicle traffic control system and method

An aerial vehicle traffic control system comprising a ground system, an unmanned aerial vehicle, a wireless communications link between the ground system and the unmanned aerial vehicle, the unmanned aerial vehicle configured to travel in a three-dimensional airspace, the three-dimensional airspace partitioned into multiple individual three-dimensional virtual cells, a database having a unique authorization token associated with each of the virtual cells, a transaction processing engine configured to assign each token in the database to no more than one unmanned aerial vehicle at a time, and a controller configured to control the unmanned aerial vehicle such that the unmanned aerial vehicle is restricted from entering a cell without first being assigned the token for such cell.