Altitude Angel has announced it has joined an EU initiative by the name of AMU-LED, focusing on the future of air mobility. The European Commission created the initiative, which has the job of demonstrating how drones can be safely integrated into the skies.
The AMU-LED project will be built over the next two years to demonstrate air mobility services with drones by 2022. Data collected during the two-year period will also be presented to regulatory bodies to influence future regulations.
The locations for these showcase flights have already been selected as Santiago de Compostela in Spain; Cranfield in the United Kingdom; and Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Over the next two years, it is expected that the drones will have a combined total flight time of 100 test hours to ensure all scenarios, use cases, and applications are explored, including air taxi operations, cargo transport, delivery of goods and medical equipment, an inspection of infrastructures, police surveillance, and emergency services support.
Using these tests and simulations, the initiative will present ways to help combat congestion on roads, improve transportation of people and goods, reduce travel times and pollution, improve efficiency, and lower accident rates.
The project is a combined effort from 16 other companies in the drone space, including Airbus, AirHub, ANRA Technologies, Boeing Research & Technology-Europe, FADA-CATEC, Cranfield University, EHang, ENAIRE, Gemeente Amsterdam, INECO, ITG, Jeppesen, NLR, Space53, and Tecnalia.
The news comes after Altitude Angel announced its Drone Zone, which will be around 8 kilometers (5 miles) in length and 500 meters (0.3 miles) wide with enhanced detect-and-avoid capabilities. The drone zone will be operated and managed by Altitude Angel. It can support fully automated drone flights beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) from any drone manufacturer that complies with a few technical integrations without the need for specialist hardware.
The company also announced a partnership with Sky-Drones that allows its unmanned traffic management (UTM) platform, Pop-Up UTM, to be quickly set up when and where required, removing the need for building ground-based infrastructure. A few months ago, Altitude Angel welcomed its first partner to the program, Spark Mobility, and later added Sugu Drones.
The system will specifically be deployed where a beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone flight is taking place and removes the need for infrastructure on the ground to be built. Pop-Up UTM also utilizes Inmarsat’s global network of satellites, meaning the system can be deployed worldwide.
GuardianUTM allows software developers and drone manufacturers to access tools and data that are accurate, up-to-date, and relevant to better understand active and past drone missions. The platform helps drone pilots follow local flight rules and avoid midair collisions with a dynamic alert system. GuardianUTM also includes data from local air authorities such as altitude restrictions, No-Fly Zones, and NOTAMs to ensure operations are as safe as possible.
Photo: Altitude Angel
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