Detect-and-Avoid Solutions for BVLOS Drone Swarms Under Development

Iris Automation has partnered with HHLA Sky to create solutions that will enable remote, global and simultaneous control over 100 industrial drones from a centralized control center while increasing local airspace safety by detecting and avoiding other unmanned or manned aircraft.

Merging HHLA Sky’s drone control center software with Iris Automation’s ground-based aircraft detection technology Casia G opens up a whole new spectrum of use cases for industrial and security-related drone operations. These include security surveillance tasks at ports, critical infrastructures, border control and oil and gas industry as well as (intra)logistics, surveying, and asset inspections.

Iris Automation’s Casia G solution is an autonomous ground-based aircraft detection technology. The computer vision system monitors aviation environments to detect, classify and alert UAV pilots to crewed aircraft that pose a risk to drone operations. Using Casia G, remote pilots and their teams may react to otherwise undetectable non-cooperative aircraft (those without transponders or ADS-B and therefore not broadcasting their location). Networking Casia G nodes provides unlimited coverage to protect critical infrastructure, regardless of size.

HHLA Sky’s unique drone control center was developed as an end-to-end solution for large-scale BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) industrial and security drone operations. The IoT platform connects and controls unmanned systems, allowing complete management, monitoring, and reporting across all aspects and tasks of 100+ industrial drones simultaneously – from just one integrated control center that can be operated globally. Drones connected with this IoT platform can carry out a wide range of assignments: including perimeter security (e.g. transmitting real-time video feeds), inspections at ports, plants, and industrial sites (e.g. structured and repeatable data collection), and delivery (e.g. ship-to-shore delivery). The platform has cybersecurity built into its core and offers broad analysis and auditing features.

Matthias Gronstedt, CEO of research and development at HHLA Sky, commented: “As our customers’ drone operations grow, safety must scale with it. The ability of Casia G to detect non-cooperative air traffic and provide essential data to the HHLA Sky system gives us the opportunity to add yet another crucial level of safety. This is an important development, both for us and our customers. We are looking forward to offering a truly innovative but affordable BVLOS solution on an industrial scale. Iris Automation’s regulatory expertise and work with bodies such as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also provides an important added value for us and our partnership.”

Jon Damush, CEO of Iris Automation, said: “One-to-many operations are a key enabler to realizing the true economic potential of drones. Doing it safely is critical to sustainability of the ecosystem. Automatic traffic awareness supports safe, scalable, commercial operations the HHLA Sky system is designed to unlock.”

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