Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DELOREAN (Drones and Egnss for LOw aiRspacE urbAN mobility)
Période du rapport: 2019-12-01 au 2021-02-28
As commercial aviation has been a major paradigm shift for the development of modern society, we are now facing a new leap in mobility services with the introduction of urban air mobility and urban air delivery.
Oxford Dictionary defines immediacy as:
‘the quality of bringing one into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement’
Our lives are now depending majorly on immediacy. From our everyday commute to work to the next-minute delivery on our preferred e-commerce platform, we are not good at waiting-in-line. And this has been mostly backed up by fast but robust technology breakthroughs enabling commercial aviation, satellite navigation and intelligent software.
We are now facing a new technology breakthrough that will bring us even more immediacy. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is finally a plausible reality that will bring multimodal fast commutes inside and around urban areas. Combining conventional means of transport with Urban Air Mobility is not only finally feasible, but it is the way to move forward in these very congested traffic areas.
Furthermore, road delivery is congesting the streets of our cities and sub-urban areas for our everyday supplies. However, the urban sky is still unexplored, and as technology advances and regulatory frameworks develop further, Urban Air Delivery (UAD) services becomes a reality that could provide not only faster, but cleaner, delivery services, thus leaving the streets for the, still utopic, recreational cycle and walk arounds.
This project will have two main pillars of research, development and operational implementation:
• Urban Air Mobility. With Airbus as a partner, and Voom supporting the action, the project will demonstrate the present and future benefits of air transport inside a city. European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS) will be integrated in the aerial platform as an enabler for the required navigation performance and safety in the very challenging urban environment.
• Urban Air Delivery. With Correos as a partner, the project will demonstrate the real possibilities of drone delivery inside a city. Real flights will be performed in the city of Benidorm, enabled by the use of EGNSS and intelligent systems for the safe navigation inside the urban canyons.
The two pillars will provide the individual assets towards the main objective of the project:
To develop the navigation and positioning requirements for the challenging urban air services, and demonstrate how EGNSS stands as an enabler of this future city sky.
Oxford Dictionary defines immediacy as:
‘the quality of bringing one into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement’
Our lives are now depending majorly on immediacy. From our everyday commute to work to the next-minute delivery on our preferred e-commerce platform, we are not good at waiting-in-line. And this has been mostly backed up by fast but robust technology breakthroughs enabling commercial aviation, satellite navigation and intelligent software.
We are now facing a new technology breakthrough that will bring us even more immediacy. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is finally a plausible reality that will bring multimodal fast commutes inside and around urban areas. Combining conventional means of transport with Urban Air Mobility is not only finally feasible, but it is the way to move forward in these very congested traffic areas.
Furthermore, road delivery is congesting the streets of our cities and sub-urban areas for our everyday supplies. However, the urban sky is still unexplored, and as technology advances and regulatory frameworks develop further, Urban Air Delivery (UAD) services becomes a reality that could provide not only faster, but cleaner, delivery services, thus leaving the streets for the, still utopic, recreational cycle and walk arounds.
This project will have two main pillars of research, development and operational implementation:
• Urban Air Mobility. With Airbus as a partner, and Voom supporting the action, the project will demonstrate the present and future benefits of air transport inside a city. European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (EGNSS) will be integrated in the aerial platform as an enabler for the required navigation performance and safety in the very challenging urban environment.
• Urban Air Delivery. With Correos as a partner, the project will demonstrate the real possibilities of drone delivery inside a city. Real flights will be performed in the city of Benidorm, enabled by the use of EGNSS and intelligent systems for the safe navigation inside the urban canyons.
The two pillars will provide the individual assets towards the main objective of the project:
To develop the navigation and positioning requirements for the challenging urban air services, and demonstrate how EGNSS stands as an enabler of this future city sky.
Urban Lab Characterisation and Flights - The Urban Lab is now fully characterized: a network of routes has been defined and a comprehensive set of flight test cases have been defined in the Urban Lab, in Benidorm. These flight test cases ensure full coverage of the different GNSS challenges that a UAM and UAD flight will face when flying in and around a city. The drone and the GNSS data collection box have been completed and are fully integrated for the 1st flight campaign (now scheduled for end of April). The services that will be part of the Urban Lab Services Platform are being architectured and initial developments started.
Urban Air Mobility Application and Demo flights - The CONOPS that defines the UAM operations has been completed. The objective #1 has indeed based the Urban Lab architecture on this CONOPS. The UAM application is now being developed. An agreement is now in place between Airbus and Eurocontrol, and the dynamics model is now being developed by Eurocontrol with the data that is shared by Airbus.
Urban Air Delivery Application and Demo flights - The CONOPS that defines the UAD operations has been completed. The objective #1 has indeed based the Urban Lab architecture on this CONOPS. The MCC application is now being developed between PildoLabs and Correos.
Navigation and Positionning Requirements for UAM and UAD - The works on this objective are currently limited to the preparation of the processing frameworks and workflow that will be followed when the 1st flight campaign is finished and the 1st set of GNSS data can be processed. This includes the development of the tools that will be needed to process all the data, the automation of the data flow between the drone and the data servers, and the simulators that train the GNSS processing tools.
Urban Air Mobility Application and Demo flights - The CONOPS that defines the UAM operations has been completed. The objective #1 has indeed based the Urban Lab architecture on this CONOPS. The UAM application is now being developed. An agreement is now in place between Airbus and Eurocontrol, and the dynamics model is now being developed by Eurocontrol with the data that is shared by Airbus.
Urban Air Delivery Application and Demo flights - The CONOPS that defines the UAD operations has been completed. The objective #1 has indeed based the Urban Lab architecture on this CONOPS. The MCC application is now being developed between PildoLabs and Correos.
Navigation and Positionning Requirements for UAM and UAD - The works on this objective are currently limited to the preparation of the processing frameworks and workflow that will be followed when the 1st flight campaign is finished and the 1st set of GNSS data can be processed. This includes the development of the tools that will be needed to process all the data, the automation of the data flow between the drone and the data servers, and the simulators that train the GNSS processing tools.
DELOREAN has the following ambition beyond the state-of-the-art:
- Integrate EGNSS based solutions on board experimental drones in order to test and demonstrate to be a viable solution for the introduction of safe and secure operations from an air navigation perspective, in urban environments;
- Integrate EGNSS solutions, with other sensors, in order to develop intelligent navigation systems for drones and UAS in urban environments capable of, for example: automatic detection and avoidance of obstacles, and precise landing in cluttered environments.
- Promote EGNSS standardization as part of the advanced avionics on-board the future UAM and parcel delivery autonomous vehicles;
- Provide inputs to the standarization groups (e.g. EUROCAE WG-105 SG-62 GNSS for UAS) and consider EGNSS measured requirements and performance within the Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) applicable to UAM and Urban Air Delivery categories for both the Specific and Certified categories (of the new European drone regulation).
- Integrate EGNSS based solutions on board experimental drones in order to test and demonstrate to be a viable solution for the introduction of safe and secure operations from an air navigation perspective, in urban environments;
- Integrate EGNSS solutions, with other sensors, in order to develop intelligent navigation systems for drones and UAS in urban environments capable of, for example: automatic detection and avoidance of obstacles, and precise landing in cluttered environments.
- Promote EGNSS standardization as part of the advanced avionics on-board the future UAM and parcel delivery autonomous vehicles;
- Provide inputs to the standarization groups (e.g. EUROCAE WG-105 SG-62 GNSS for UAS) and consider EGNSS measured requirements and performance within the Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) applicable to UAM and Urban Air Delivery categories for both the Specific and Certified categories (of the new European drone regulation).