Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NEDUNA (NEutral Data host for UNcrewed Avitation)
Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2025-03-31
Telecom and aviation industries had nothing to do with each other so far. But now, with commercial drones set to revolutionize many industry verticals, a service market of more than 100 billion EUR annual revenue is expected in the next 5 years with applications such as drones as first responders, inspection and surveillance, delivery of parcels and critical goods, all the way to drone taxis.
But to make this a reality, a drone has to fly long distances, 10, 20, 100 or more kilometers. And for that, a special permit, an approval is needed. To get such a flight approval, drone operators have to get all sorts of data to pass the necessary risk assessment. On top of the well-known aviation data, they now also must include information from telecoms. And this is exactly the problem that NEDUNA solves: As no such interface for telecom data into aviation systems existed so far, NEDUNA provides the missing link.
So, what data needs to be exchanged? It is clear that wind and weather conditions may be a risk for any aircraft. Therefore, wind and weather data must be analyzed for every flight. And today, a drone operator can get that information - globally through one single interface, from a single provider. In the same way, sufficient connectivity for communication must be given, for the entire flight. If you can't demonstrate that – you just can't conduct the business, because you will not be allowed to fly!
Why? Because a fundamental requirement in aviation is to have a “Pilot in Command”, who is legally responsible for the safe conduct of the flight, even if systems fail. In traditional aviation this pilot is sitting on the aircraft. But with drones this is not possible, so the pilot becomes a “Remote Pilot in Command”, who must be connected to the aircraft for the entire flight. Consequently, approval can only be given if a drone operator can demonstrate that communication with the drone will work all the time.
For safety reasons, the airspace regulation and the aviation authority require redundancy, meaning the drone must have connectivity to more than one communication network. But how can you handle that? Well, what you want is a single digital interface, a single subscription, a single market place to get all and the required information so that the processed can be digitized, automated and scaled – and that’s what the objective of NEDUNA is.
But to make this a reality, a drone has to fly long distances, 10, 20, 100 or more kilometers. And for that, a special permit, an approval is needed. To get such a flight approval, drone operators have to get all sorts of data to pass the necessary risk assessment. On top of the well-known aviation data, they now also must include information from telecoms. And this is exactly the problem that NEDUNA solves: As no such interface for telecom data into aviation systems existed so far, NEDUNA provides the missing link.
So, what data needs to be exchanged? It is clear that wind and weather conditions may be a risk for any aircraft. Therefore, wind and weather data must be analyzed for every flight. And today, a drone operator can get that information - globally through one single interface, from a single provider. In the same way, sufficient connectivity for communication must be given, for the entire flight. If you can't demonstrate that – you just can't conduct the business, because you will not be allowed to fly!
Why? Because a fundamental requirement in aviation is to have a “Pilot in Command”, who is legally responsible for the safe conduct of the flight, even if systems fail. In traditional aviation this pilot is sitting on the aircraft. But with drones this is not possible, so the pilot becomes a “Remote Pilot in Command”, who must be connected to the aircraft for the entire flight. Consequently, approval can only be given if a drone operator can demonstrate that communication with the drone will work all the time.
For safety reasons, the airspace regulation and the aviation authority require redundancy, meaning the drone must have connectivity to more than one communication network. But how can you handle that? Well, what you want is a single digital interface, a single subscription, a single market place to get all and the required information so that the processed can be digitized, automated and scaled – and that’s what the objective of NEDUNA is.
Standardization and regulatory activities both on the telecom side are very important, as they define what is possible or not. Dimetor is very active on both sides of the standardization for data interfaces, i.e. both on the telecom and the aviation industry side. On the telecom side, Dimetor is instrumental for the global definition and harmonization of such standards. Thomas Neubauer, CEO of Dimetor is leading the global activity on behalf of GSMA, the global organization representing all telecom operators. Similarly, Mr Neubauer is also leading a task force on behalf of EASA, the European Aviation Safety Agency, to define the “means of compliance” that allows the use of such data in aviation. Being in the position to actively influence these standards and regulations is a huge achievement for Dimetor and NEDUNA and remains very important.
Technically, the foundation of NEDUNA is to develop software architectures and systems that allow the real-time processing of a huge amount of highly classified telecom data, process that according to GDPR rules, and make it accessible to aviation by integrating the results directly into the aviation systems. That work has been performed to a level that the data from multiple CSPs (communication service providers) can be aggregated, processed and exchanged with aviation and flight management systems. A major achievement already.
In order to scale for global operations, the cloud native processing platform has to be optimized for performance. This has been achieved in a way that – for example – the computation of the entire airspace connectivity data across a country of the size of the USA, with more than a million cell towers, can be processed in a matter of a few seconds!
Another key achievement is also to provide a front end to NEDUNA, the market place for data, that allows end customers to set up an account, define subscription models and provide payment details for customers. Users can then log on to the system and extract the required data for particular flight paths, for specific aircraft and other project related conditions. For full operation customers will be accessible through APIs for full process automation.
It is clear that success of such complex software environments comes with reliable high-performance testing and automation. This has been achieved by following the Continuous Integration principles, where we have implemented fully automated testing and quality assurance already.
Furthermore, we have made excellent progress with the analytics, AI and validation of the processing of the data. Making assumptions, using AI and ML to automatically learn from data, and then validate from field measurements has been at the core of that work that has been accomplished so far. All of the above has been already part of first pilots, tests and implementations with customers and/or customer data and real world measurements.
Technically, the foundation of NEDUNA is to develop software architectures and systems that allow the real-time processing of a huge amount of highly classified telecom data, process that according to GDPR rules, and make it accessible to aviation by integrating the results directly into the aviation systems. That work has been performed to a level that the data from multiple CSPs (communication service providers) can be aggregated, processed and exchanged with aviation and flight management systems. A major achievement already.
In order to scale for global operations, the cloud native processing platform has to be optimized for performance. This has been achieved in a way that – for example – the computation of the entire airspace connectivity data across a country of the size of the USA, with more than a million cell towers, can be processed in a matter of a few seconds!
Another key achievement is also to provide a front end to NEDUNA, the market place for data, that allows end customers to set up an account, define subscription models and provide payment details for customers. Users can then log on to the system and extract the required data for particular flight paths, for specific aircraft and other project related conditions. For full operation customers will be accessible through APIs for full process automation.
It is clear that success of such complex software environments comes with reliable high-performance testing and automation. This has been achieved by following the Continuous Integration principles, where we have implemented fully automated testing and quality assurance already.
Furthermore, we have made excellent progress with the analytics, AI and validation of the processing of the data. Making assumptions, using AI and ML to automatically learn from data, and then validate from field measurements has been at the core of that work that has been accomplished so far. All of the above has been already part of first pilots, tests and implementations with customers and/or customer data and real world measurements.
Aggregation data from multiple systems, network operations and/or countries – like for cross-boarder drone operations like railway inspections – is all way beyond the state of the art. NEDUNA is setting a new standard and Dimetor is now exceptionally well places to make that a reality and success.
The importance and the leading edge of the NEDUNA team is also expressed by the facts that the globally leading standardization and regulatory bodies are reaching out to Dimetor / NEDUNA people to lead the respective task forces and working groups on that subject. Partnering with institutions like EASA on standardization and regulation will be a key to success for NEDUNA. Decisions in the next months will emphasize the importance of NEDUNA, more than originally anticipated.
With telecoms and aviation coming closer and faster together than expected, the go-to-market will see some modifications, as telecom providers will not only provide the infrastructure for drone operators to deliver end-to-end services; some of the largest drone operators will actually be the telcos themselves. Examples already crystalize, with the largest drone operators in Europe and Japan being telcos. This requires some change of plan for the Go-To-Market strategy for NEDUNA, but given the fact that this is an additional and new market on top of the original considerations, this is an exciting new and additional opportunity.
The importance and the leading edge of the NEDUNA team is also expressed by the facts that the globally leading standardization and regulatory bodies are reaching out to Dimetor / NEDUNA people to lead the respective task forces and working groups on that subject. Partnering with institutions like EASA on standardization and regulation will be a key to success for NEDUNA. Decisions in the next months will emphasize the importance of NEDUNA, more than originally anticipated.
With telecoms and aviation coming closer and faster together than expected, the go-to-market will see some modifications, as telecom providers will not only provide the infrastructure for drone operators to deliver end-to-end services; some of the largest drone operators will actually be the telcos themselves. Examples already crystalize, with the largest drone operators in Europe and Japan being telcos. This requires some change of plan for the Go-To-Market strategy for NEDUNA, but given the fact that this is an additional and new market on top of the original considerations, this is an exciting new and additional opportunity.