Widespread drone adoption in Europe, under the right conditions and given the necessary technological developments, can help reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions and improve the overall quality of life in European cities. To make commercial drone services feasible within urban areas, the EU has developed the concept of “U-Space”: “specific procedures designed to support safe, efficient, and secure access to airspace for large numbers of drones.” This is intended to enable the safe, large-scale deployment of drones at low altitudes within crowded urban environments but requires significant automation of functions. The current model requires human pilots to maintain visual contact with drones; pilots must still closely monitor flight operations and take over in the event of GPS loss, hardware malfunction, battery failure, bad weather, or ground obstacles. A human pilot also needs to ensure drop point areas are clear when performing delivery missions. These factors severely limit the scalability of drone operations and prevent their safe implementation in dense urban environments.
The rise of e-commerce has resulted in increased last-mile logistical complexity, as individual deliveries have increasingly become the norm. ~ 50% of total logistics costs (fuel, fleet operation costs, wages, etc.) are in the last mile. Last-mile deliveries using ground vehicles are subject to unpredictable factors, such as traffic jams, inclement weather conditions, and road closures, and carry a meaningful carbon footprint. Outside cities, same-day delivery options are limited. Drone deliveries will enable same-day service (within hours or minutes), even in rural areas and congested urban environments, with a lower carbon footprint. Drones can also improve the transport of sensitive goods such as medical goods and legal documents. (Ernst and Young, 2021; Forbes, 18 August 2021).Public utilities must expend significant manpower on inspecting infrastructure. While drones are currently used to some extent, they must now be operated within an operator's Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS), thus significantly reducing their productivity and their ability to save costs.
Today, there is no affordable, lightweight solution that can enable drones to make autonomous decisions beyond the operator’s line of sight, to position themselves accurately in 3D space, even when GPS is unavailable or not or accurate enough, to avoid hazards by detecting and evaluating objects in their environment, and to precisely choose safe areas for landing and delivery, without risking people or property. There is not yet a solution on the market which can reliably provide (among other things) ‘detect and avoid’ capabilities, geolocation services and emergency management in all circumstances (including in high complexity, dynamic environments where GPS may not be reliable).
This project will validate, qualify, and commercialize Sightec’s safety solution, which represents an enabling technology helping to unlock the full potential of drones for Europe and the world. Using cutting-edge Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, which provides vision-based navigation, safe landing, obstacle avoidance and safe delivery, Sightec's software turns the drone's camera into a smart and affordable sensor - enabling the drone to “see and understand its surroundings” like a human pilot.
