On 28 and 30 April, SESAR JU organised a series of webinars bringing together representatives from the recently closed U-space projects to present their preliminary results. Over 1,400 joined the webinars altogether, which were organised within the framework of the SESAR Digital Academy. The sessions provided an overview of the concept of operations developed for U-space, as well as research and demonstration work addressing critical communications, surveillance and tracking, information management and exchange, detect and avoid, and CNS technologies. A consolidated and more in-depth analysis of the results will be made available in the coming months.
Session 1: U-space: from concept to reality
Ludovic Legros, SESAR Joint Undertaking
U-space concept of operations (CORUS)
Andrew Hately, Eurocontrol
Putting U-space services to the test in Denmark, France and The Netherlands (PODIUM)
Anastasiia Sobchenko, Eurocontrol
Pablo Sanchez-Escalonilla, CRIDA
Demonstrating safe and secure operations in Italy (DIODE)
Luigi Brucculeri, Technosky for ENAV
Session 2: Taking up the U-space challenge
Ludovic Legros, SESAR Joint Undertaking
Improved tracking and monitoring of drones (CLASS)
Ellen Malfliet, Unifly
Ensuring unmanned and manned integration in very low-level airspace (SAFEDRONE)
Antidio Viguria, CATEC
Empowering heterogeneous aviation through cellular signals (EMPHASIS)
Petr Casek, Hi S.R.O.
Session 3: Demonstrating U-space
Ludovic Legros, SESAR Joint Undertaking
Open and competitive drone ecosystem – Perspective of SESAR GOF U-space
Thomas Lutz, Frequentis
Validating U-space in urban and rural areas – Netherlands (VUTURA)
Henk Hesselink, NLR
Ellen Malfliet, Unifly
Practical use cases from DOMUS U-space demonstration
Daniel Garcia-Monteavaro Vizcaino, Enaire
Questions and answers
During all three webinar sessions, participants posted a series of questions some of which were answered by speakers in writing.
Background to U-space research projects
In 2017, the SESAR JU launched a set of exploratory research projects addressing everything from the concept of operations for drone operations, critical communications, surveillance and tracking, and information management to aircraft systems, ground-based technologies, cyber-resilience and geo-fencing. Seeing is believing when it comes to securing acceptance and accelerating market take-up of the U-space services and capabilities. To this end, in 2018 the SESAR JU launched demonstration projects aimed at showing the readiness of U-space services to manage a broad range of drone operations and related applications, and their interaction with manned aviation.
Read summary of preliminary project results
Watch video about U-space research and innovation
Get more updates and news about U-space