1. Drones and Autonomous Systems
Commercial in Confidence
Drones and Autonomous Systems
Emerging Technologies
Marcel Quintana – Software Systems Engineering Manager, Thread Lead

2. Vision in the Drones Landscape
To become a leading hub of knowledge, expertise and innovation of space-enabled technologies in support to:
Exploitation of government and commercial drone applications and services supporting industry and trade.
Contribution to UK drone infrastructure implementation and deployment for enhanced operational safety and integration in non-segregated airspace, particularly under Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) conditions and towards the Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) concept.

3. Priority areas as aligned to other Catapult activities
Focus on Government and Commercial Drones Applications
Priority areas as aligned to other Catapult activities

4. Strategy Alignment in Drones Infrastructure Implementation
Implementing priorities are driven by the UK Drone (Regulation) Bill (new release expected Spring 2018) and the EC SESAR-JU U-space Blueprint 2017 strategy.
By 2019, U-space is expected to be established with U1 services, plus some pre-operational demonstrations of the initial U-space services (U2).
U1 U-space foundation services provide e-registration, e-identification and geofencing.
U2 U-space initial services support the management of drone operations and may include flight planning, flight approval, tracking, airspace dynamic information, and procedural interfaces with air traffic control.
U3 U-space advanced services support more complex operations in dense areas and may include capacity management and assistance for conflict detection. Indeed, the availability of automated DAA functionalities, in addition to more reliable means of communication, will lead to a significant increase of operations in all environments.
U4 U-space full services, particularly services offering integrated interfaces with manned aviation, support the full operational capability of U-space and will rely on very high level of automation, connectivity and digitalisation for both the drone and the U-space system.

5. Activities in Drones Infrastructure Implementation
To foster the initiatives enabling the infrastructure implementation towards the UTM concept, supported by space-enabled technologies.
Collaboration with stakeholders from commercial and general aviation as well as government departments (e.g. UK DfT, CAA and NATS).
Technology implementation with the space-based element, particularly (hybrid) satellite communications, resilient GNSS, and payload technologies (e.g. ADS-B) contributing to enabling BVLOS operations.
Technology implementation towards aerial Autonomous Systems enabled by the UTM; including the use and integration of drones with emerging concepts such High-Altitude Platforms (HAPS) or spaceports.

6. Opportunities in Drones brought by Westcott Space Cluster
Large Facility for Operational Demonstrations, V&V
Trials in government and
commercial applications and services
Trials towards UTM concept
supporting
industry
Implementation of (System of) Systems and Advanced Solutions
Hybrid communications including
5G and SatComms integration
Cooperative & autonomous drones technologies (e.g. swarm & ground robotics, AI and data, IoT integration)
particularly envisaged

7. Thanks