From 19 to 22 September, the U-space AURA project (PJ.34) carried out a series of tests at Lille Airport in the North of France on an interface to enable data exchange between drone and air traffic management systems. The project aims to enable a smooth and safe integration of drones into low-level airspace without impacting conventional air traffic operations.

The project used system wide information management (SWIM), an existing SESAR Solution, to create the collaborative environment between the ATM system run by the French air navigation service provider, DSNA, and a drone U-space system TopSky – UAS developed by Thales.

Live drone flights were performed in the vicinity of the airport and monitored both in the U-space system and in the control tower.  During the exercise, different scenarios and U-space services were successfully validated including, network identification using the Thales ScaleFlyt RemoteID Tracker, geo awareness, flight authorisations, and non-conformance monitoring. The underlying network architecture and systems collated strategic and tactical U-space information with live manned traffic

Analysis of results are ongoing, and the validation report is on its way! 

This project has received funding from the SESAR Joint Undertaking under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101017521