The international aeronautical technology company AERTEC, the Advanced Centre for Aerospace Technologies, CATEC, Pildo Labs and the University of Seville have successfully completed in Seville, in the context of the U-ELCOME project, a series of tests in a real environment aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of transporting goods, in this case medical cargo, over long distances using drones and UAS.
The U-ELCOME project is coordinated by Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, and aims to demonstrate the safe and reliable integration of commercial activities with drones in airspace.
The tests have been carried out in Seville, one of the 15 locations in Spain, France and Italy where these trials will be carried out, which will help to accelerate the incorporation of U-space services in Europe.
Seville and Jaen are two of the 15 locations, spread across Spain, France and Italy, where these trials will be carried out, which will help accelerate the uptake of U-Space services in Europe.
U-space is a set of digital and automated services designed to enable the safe and efficient access of a large number of unmanned aircraft to the same airspace. U-space is an enabling framework for the development of UAS operations, their integration and coexistence with manned aviation (air traffic management services, ATM, and air navigation services, ANS).
The trials conducted in Seville consisted of a test on how UAS in U-space can optimise medical cargo deliveries in urban, interurban and rural environments by improving the efficiency, safety and sustainability of operations. The key, on this occasion, was the combination of digital and physical infrastructure capabilities. The feasibility of the concept has been demonstrated and flights in real scenarios will be carried out shortly.
The benefits of U-space are focused on organising, making more flexible, controlling and making safer and more efficient all types of drone operations in urban environments or where there is a high concentration of simultaneous activities with drones, as well as generating new business and employment opportunities.
The test involved the collection in a hospital area of several medical loads (medicines, defibrillator, surgical equipment…) with a drone from the University of Seville, which carried them to a nearby runway where a UAS TARSIS was waiting, which was responsible for quickly transporting the medical load up to several tens of kilometres, where, upon landing, the load was transferred to another small drone, responsible for carrying it to its destination point, in an area that is difficult to access. The flights were BVLOS (beyond the pilot’s field of vision) and were carried out automatically.
These tests have demonstrated the feasibility of carrying out UAS operations supported by U-space U1 and U2 services. This means that both the basic U-space services (U1), which include e-registration, e-identification and geo-awareness, and also the initial services (U2), which include flight planning, approval, tracking, dynamic airspace information and information exchange with air traffic management (ATM) systems, have been validated.
This project has received funding from the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) under grant agreement No. 101079171.
