Projects

On September 26, the SAFIR consortium held an Open Day hosted by the Port of Antwerp. A multitude of industrial and commercial drone applications were on display during live demonstrations. During the Open Day, the safety and economic viability of integrated drone traffic in a challenging environment was successfully demonstrated by the various use cases of the consortium partners.

Sint-Truiden, Belgium, 5 September 2019 – The U-space SAFIR consortium, a group of 13 public and private organisations, hosted an open day at DronePort, Sint-Truiden today, successfully showcasing integrated drone traffic management for a broad range of drone operations. European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc came to see the progress made.

Photo: www.is.fi

Unifly is a contributing partner to the Gulf of Finland (GOF) project, one of six U-space demonstration projects. The Gulf of Finland (GOF) U-space demonstration project is funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking. Unifly contributes to the project with its world-leading Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) technology, alongside two other UTM providers.

The HealthDrone project looks to enable the safe, reliable and efficient transportation of passengers and cargo with drones. The focus lies on use-cases in the healthcare sector. The goal is to help provide better patient treatment and to reduce costs.

The AW-Drones project aims to contribute to the safe use of mass market drones by supporting the on-going EU regulatory process for the definition of rules, technical standards and procedures for civilian drones.

The MEDRONA project is a research project focused on the transportation of medical goods by drone between hospitals and laboratories/pharmacies. The project was selected for funding by the Belgian government, in line with the government's Smart Mobility Belgium (SMB) initiative.

LAANC is the Low-Altitude Authorization & Notification Capability. This service automates the application and approval process for UAS pilots wishing to get access to controlled airspace near airports under Part 107, through near real-time processing of airspace authorizations below approved altitudes in controlled airspace.

If approved, pilots now receive their authorization in near-real time, compared to periods up to 60 or even 90 days for the manual process. Since September 2018, LAANC is available at nearly 300 air traffic facilities covering approximately 500 airports in the United States. The complete list of facilities taking part in LAANC is available here.

VUTURA is a SESAR Horizon 2020 project supporting the development of U-space; the European vision for the safe, secure and efficient management of drone traffic.

The project was designed with the intent of validating the practical functionality of U-space services with tests in urban and rural areas.

The Gulf of Finland (GOF) U-space demonstration project is funded by the SESAR Joint Undertaking, as part of one of the six SESAR U-space demonstrations. The project will take place in Estonia and Finland, with the aim to ensure safe and secure drone traffic management.

The SAFIR-consortium was selected by the Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) to demonstrate integrated drone traffic management for a wide range of drone activities in Belgium.