It is already clear that drones are something permanent. But what safety guarantees do these prototypes of autonomous and unmanned flights offer? How can the traffic of these devices coming and going through the skies of our cities be organized in the future? This is the question that the Ágora project tries to answer, an R&D initiative promoted by the Airbus company and the Andalusian Aerospace Development Foundation, FADA-CATEC, which is a pioneer in Spain.
At the ATLAS Experimental Flight Center in Villacarrillo (Jaén) some tests were carried out in mid-November to approximate a real situation in a U-space environment, the European project of UTM (Autonomous Traffic Control, Unmanned Traffic Management, in its acronym in English ) – an acronym denoting the set of services to coordinate the operation of unmanned aerial vehicles among themselves and with the rest of the airspace users. In this test, the flight was arranged by two different drones, creating a conflict between their respective flight plans. The first of them, equipped with highly autonomous obstacle detection capabilities, warned the U-Space systems of the presence of an unexpected crane in the middle of its route. The U-Space software warned the second drone of the machine’s existence, but it safely diverted its route before launch.
“These conflicts in air transport will increase as the number of services of this type of autonomous drone grows,” explains Antidio Viguria, technical director of the Center for Advanced Aerospace Technologies (CATEC) in Seville and coordinator of these tests with the has been in the Ágora project welcomed. Its goal is none other than to move towards more sustainable and intelligent cities while ensuring the safe integration of all types of operations with highly autonomous drones (aerial robots) in urban environments through the use of U-Space services.
“The demonstration with the crane was not designed for a specific application, but aimed to test a series of services that allow drones to be safely integrated into the airspace,” reports Viguria through a video conference with EL PAÍS. “These services are perfectly complemented by another drone’s autonomous flight decision-making capabilities, such as detection and avoidance capability, meaning if it detects a potential collision, it’s able to automatically change its flight plan and maintain other parameters that you need to.” with the other drones, for example the separation distance. When you do that quickly, you get more out of the airspace and more efficiently.”
In order for drones to be safely integrated into the airspace, the design of the UTM is crucial and its development involves collaboration with Airbus. “UTM is the fabric that unites everything and it is only when it is perfected and developed that all the possibilities that come to mind when we think of drones are deployed,” explains Miguel Ángel Vilaplana, the head of the UTM company in Spain video conference. Its design is essential to safely control the flight of highly autonomous drones, i.e. those that are not constantly piloted by a human from the ground.
Technology is the essential pillar to manage this interaction because, as Vilaplana points out, there will be no drone air traffic controllers in cities. “We see how there are drones that deliver medicines to remote places, package applications, and this Christmas we will be monitored on the streets by drones, but until we have a way to safely direct their traffic, it will be very difficult to move forward and evolve,” he says. “If something happens, if one fails, how can we help them, how do we control the impact on other aircraft or manned aviation?” he adds.
The development of this technology hand in hand with FADA-CATEC is the basis of the Ágora project. For the development of the project, the company from its plant in Puerto Real (Cádiz) and the Andalusian Foundation for Aerospace Development (FADA) have created a Joint Innovation Unit (UIC) to promote this industrial research. “The system needs to be highly automated to be very secure, because the idea is that it manages many vehicles and that if something goes wrong, the entire ecosystem is controlled, also taking into account that the drones carry out very advanced operations will. These are the tasks that we want to tackle at the research level in Ágora at the moment,” says Vilaplana. Viguria contextualizes with practical examples: “If the GPS fails me, we need to develop solutions that allow me to navigate from an alternative position fix and carry out the operation until I can land safely. Or if I lose communication to be able to plan a flight path that will allow me to reach a landing point.
The challenge of a common regulatory framework
Another essential element to give impetus to the project is the regulatory framework. “There is still a gap between what drones can do and what the regulatory framework allows. And that’s what Ágora wants to promote,” says the Airbus engineer. While in the conventional aviation arena it is very obvious that the standards need to be global, in the UTM the consensus is more complex. “There is a risk that each city and even each neighborhood will want to develop their own interface to drive the applications and added value of the drones, and this could pose a risk that an operator develops a drone with an emission or emission system of a specific kind Interface, but in France they ask for a different one, ”Warns Vilaplana. That is why work is being done to promote international standards. With the US and China taking the lead in regulatory development, the European Union’s U space is a serious bet to create this global standard. “There is a very clear effort being made at the European level, coupled with Europe wanting to lead this internationally. These common standards are essential to move forward in this area,” says the Airbus boss.
Viguria points out that the technological challenges of this project are to define new operational concepts for the U space, which will be internationally regulated in February 2023. “From this moment, in a few years, it will be possible to establish that to build an infrastructure that allows the development of applications, so that from 2025 we could start implementing applications for the remote inspection of linear infrastructures and logistics,” ventures Viguria . The emergence of these on-board algorithms for the management of emergencies when flying drones has its epicenter in the ATLAS Experimental Flight Center, located among the sea of olive trees that surrounds Villacarrillo. “It is a privileged place. The orography, the meteorology allows us to replicate and design all kinds of tests for the development of the entire technology,” says Vilaplana.
The Ágora project is co-financed by the Junta de Andalucía with 1.06 million euros. The Minister for Universities, Research and Innovation, José Carlos Gómez Villamandos, has stressed that this investment will help “the community to continue to make a difference and in a sector as strategic as aerospace and in particular in the non-aircraft sector “Manned” can set standards. In addition to the ATLAS Experimental Flight Center in Jaén, in Andalusia there is the UAV Innovation Center in Seville or the Test Center for Unmanned Systems (CEUS) in Huelva. Andalusia is the only community that has an aerospace strategy for the period 2021-2027, which includes among its priorities the development of new companies such as RPAS (uncrewled aircraft) and their applications.
According to the data included in the strategy designed by the autonomous administration, the drone market is estimated at more than 20,000 million dollars and is expected to grow to 54,000 million euros by 2025. The European Commission estimates that in two decades this sector will employ more than 100,000 people.
A chance for empty Spain
In an environment where 5-G has not even penetrated effectively, one might think a priori that the development of technologies to ensure the safe flight of unmanned aerial vehicles without ground control is limited to big cities, helping to narrow the gap between rural ones Areas further open world and the cosmopolitan world. But Miguel Ángel Vilaplana, head of Airbus UTM, sees this as an opportunity. “In this context, we always talk about urban mobility, about air taxis, when things are moving the fastest in the countryside. The main company in logistics with drones, Zipline, has operational networks in African countries,” he points out. “The quickest benefit and what can lead us to better social acceptance is development in rural areas,” he says enthusiastically.
Antidio Viguria, technical director of the Advanced Center for Aerospace Technologies (CATEC), also believes that empty Spain offers many more opportunities for developing technologies and implementing drone applications. “The demands and risks are lower because it’s not the same to fly in a rural area than in the middle of Madrid. And that can facilitate the development of certain applications, but also an opportunity to involve the Spain in this new technology and the drone sector.”
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