Periodic Reporting for period 1 - 5D-AeroSafe (5 services of Drones for increased airports and waterways safety and security.)
Reporting period: 2020-06-01 to 2021-11-30
5D-AeoroSafe project aims to be a first step in the study of the utilisation of drones for Airport/Waterport operation and maintenance. The concept of the project is to develop an advanced concept technological demonstrator to enable the operation in safe conditions of drones in a complex Air Traffic environment. The missions allocated to drones are the following ones:
1. Detection of defects or issues on the air or water platform: the drones are equiped with cameras that provides the pictures that will be analysed by the computer vision system to detect these defects.
2. Verify the status of the orientation system on the taxiways and runways.
3. Calibrate the landing aids by using a specifically developped sensor.
4. Monitor the platform and its surrounding to detect security breaches.
The drones are centrally managed around a Generic Ground Control Station (GGCS) that allocates the missions and gathers the mission reports.
The missions are defined by the local Air Traffic Control '(ATC) that manages the airport/Waterport.
In order to perform the missions in total conditions of safety, 5D-AeroSafe develops an IT platform around a middleware that manages all the project data and that has a double road:
1. manage the missions (from the taskind orders to the production of reports),
2. Deconflict the drone missions with the manned flights.
The interest to use drones for these operatios is obvious for the end-users and stakeholders. It enbles the inspection of the infrastructure that is much quicker than with the current solutions and the needed staffing is reduced. The challenge is to demonstrate that the system is not adding risks in terms of flight safety. In the current situation, the two types of flight will be separated. In the future, due to an improved UTM, the drone missions will be performed with more flexibility and a cohabitation will be possible.
The project will develop the system in an incremental way with 2 main versions (V1 and V2) which will be tested in 2 real airports 'one regional and one international) and 1 waterport in a greek island.
1. Detection of defects or issues on the air or water platform: the drones are equiped with cameras that provides the pictures that will be analysed by the computer vision system to detect these defects.
2. Verify the status of the orientation system on the taxiways and runways.
3. Calibrate the landing aids by using a specifically developped sensor.
4. Monitor the platform and its surrounding to detect security breaches.
The drones are centrally managed around a Generic Ground Control Station (GGCS) that allocates the missions and gathers the mission reports.
The missions are defined by the local Air Traffic Control '(ATC) that manages the airport/Waterport.
In order to perform the missions in total conditions of safety, 5D-AeroSafe develops an IT platform around a middleware that manages all the project data and that has a double road:
1. manage the missions (from the taskind orders to the production of reports),
2. Deconflict the drone missions with the manned flights.
The interest to use drones for these operatios is obvious for the end-users and stakeholders. It enbles the inspection of the infrastructure that is much quicker than with the current solutions and the needed staffing is reduced. The challenge is to demonstrate that the system is not adding risks in terms of flight safety. In the current situation, the two types of flight will be separated. In the future, due to an improved UTM, the drone missions will be performed with more flexibility and a cohabitation will be possible.
The project will develop the system in an incremental way with 2 main versions (V1 and V2) which will be tested in 2 real airports 'one regional and one international) and 1 waterport in a greek island.
The first part of the project was dedicated to the analysis of the users and stakeholders requirements, the concepts of operations of the system and the regulatory dframework supporting the drone operations (current one and envisaged evolutions). The whole material was validated by the consortium and external advisers. The security missions will be defined in the second part of the project.
In a second step, the system specifications and design were defined. The design was validated during the first f2f meeting of the project in Athens, July 2021.
The first pilot (supported by the ENAC simulation tool) was satisfactorilly performed in December 2021 (remote event due to covid conditions) with 2 months delays compared to the initial plan.
In a second step, the system specifications and design were defined. The design was validated during the first f2f meeting of the project in Athens, July 2021.
The first pilot (supported by the ENAC simulation tool) was satisfactorilly performed in December 2021 (remote event due to covid conditions) with 2 months delays compared to the initial plan.
The system in its first version (V1) is currently under development. Progress beyond the state of the art will be demonstrated during the pilots execurion scheduled in Q3 2022.