The SESAR Horizon 2020 PODIUM project is busy performing U-space demonstration activities at five sites across Denmark, France and the Netherlands from May to mid-July. With temperatures soaring to the high thirties at some sites, the heat is on for the PODIUM partners!

The five PODIUM sites are Hans Christian Airport with its temporary reserved airspaces for drones and its AFIS service; the Drones Paris Region with its 300 hectares of dedicated drone zone; Rodez-Aveyron airport with its class D CTR; the Netherlands RPAS Test Centre, Marknesse; and Groningen Airport Eelde with its class C CTR. This wide variety of operational environments and stakeholders, together with three different sets of national regulations, provides the PODIUM partners with the ideal platform to really push the U-space envelope!

Thanks to post-flight and post-demonstration questionnaires, observations from validation experts and debriefings, PODIUM is able to collect and analyse valuable feedback about the ease-of use and benefits of U-space services and technologies. This strong emphasis on validation aims to strengthen the conclusions and recommendations coming out of the project.

So far, the initial insights look very promising, examples being the increased efficiency of flight authorisations and safety benefits due to increased situational awareness. The project will also highlight any areas that require further attention. The PODIUM partners aim to deliver a demonstration report by end September, in time for a dissemination event at EUROCONTROL Brussels on the 17th of October.

The main PODIUM partners are EUROCONTROL, Airbus, Delair, DSNA, Drones Paris Region, Integra Aerial Systems, Naviair, Netherlands Aerospace Centre, Orange and Unifly. How do they contribute to PODIUM? What do they think about U-space and UTM? Six of the PODIUM partners share their views in this short video which was screened at Le Bourget.