Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRACKANT (Mobile Smart Tracking Antenna System for Remotely Piloted Aircrafts)
Période du rapport: 2014-11-01 au 2015-04-30
PIDSO, an Austrian SME, specialized in ultra‐light carbon‐fibre antenna solutions for diverse applications e.g. in the automotive and unmanned sector, has developed an innovative communication and control system for Remotely Piloted Aircrafts (RPAs), which is - compared to competitive solutions - significantly lighter and smaller allowing to mount it on RPAS creating the opportunity for using one RPAS as a relay station for another RPAS thereby dramatically increasing range as well as improved data transmission features. This provides the missing technological base for Beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) navigation needed to cross through areas with obstacles like buildings in cities or diverse topographical factors.
The objectives of phase 1 (collecting feedback for a fine-tuning road map, estimating future production costs, elaborating a business and market entry plan), could all be met: Field tests with test partners, in particular RPAS manufacturers, were conducted as well as a survey among 11 RPAS and payload manufacturers. This yielded profound feedback from the primary business opportunity fields, which was fed into a road map for fine-tuning the solution to get it from current TRL6 to TRL9. Cost models for production and a detailed business and market entry plan were elaborated.
Apart from the direct outcomes of the project described above, in the frame of the project we were able to even widen the perspectives regarding targeted application fields and the resulting impact. In contrast to the grant agreement, we will first focus on the public safety and industrial inspection area, because our system can create the most convincing USP and benefit in these areas. For agricultural applications, which we had been prioritizing before, portability is not that critical, therefore we will target this area later. We will further observe this and other areas to detect new relevant market opportunities in time.
The project helped to pave the way to deploy our technology potentially unfolding huge commercial and societal impact such as improved disaster and rescue management facilities.
The project helped to pave the way to deploy our technology potentially unfolding huge commercial and societal impact such as improved disaster and rescue management facilities.