Trials carried out as part of SESAR CORUS-XUAM research took place close to the city centre of Castelldefels, near Barcelona, to test various U-space services with the goal of validating a platform with multiple U-space Service Providers (USSP), and a common information service provider (CSSP). Project leader Giancarlo Ferrara details the demonstrations in a LinkedIn post.
The USSPs are the point of access for drone operators for planning their flights, receiving clearance and performing their operations, while the CSSP provides the interconnection between them.
Speaking at World ATM Congress 2022, project technical coordinator Andrew Hately said negotiating permission with the 12 authorities involved was the largest part of the work. There were also technical difficulties as the trials took place underneath Barcelona flight path: “We demonstrate current services and extend them with additional services or refinements and show how these meet the needs of urban air mobility for both passenger and commercial transport in an urban area.”
In this multi-USSP architecture, the team involving ENAIRE, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), HEMAV, ASLOGIC, Indra, CRIDA, and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and MĀRS INTELLIGENCE, validated various services, such as tracking, authorisation, geofencing, strategic deconfliction and conformance monitoring, and also collected information on the social impact of drone operations.
CORUS-XUAM is a two-year very large-scale demonstration project designed to show how U-space services and solutions could support integrated UAM flight operations. Part of the European Union/SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking Horizon 2020 programme, it’s coordinated by the Eurocontrol Innovation Hub and includes partners from the leading innovative research arms of the ATM, UAS and UAM industries.
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