On Monday, May 30, 2022, High Tech Campus Eindhoven hosted a final demonstration event to show several use cases of autonomous drones performing Beyond the Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights. The demonstrations are part of the Flying Forward FF2020 project that aims to create a state of the art geospatial Urban Air Mobility (UAM) ecosystem for autonomous drone missions. FF2020 consortium partners, Digie, Nalantis, Serendipity, and VERSES witnessed the activities that took place, as well as campus residents, HTCE service partners and members of the Dutch press.

Overseen by HTCE’s Ted van Hoof, UAM Project Manager, and Paul van Son, Innovation Manager, the use cases consisted of drones surveilling HTCE premises, performing preventative building inspections, and delivering AEDs, meals and packages. Guests of the event were able to see drones taking off, landing and flying overhead en route to different landing sites on campus.

High Tech Campus Eindhoven worked closely with VERSES, an FF2020 technical partner, to perform these simulations on campus. They provided the geospatial digital infrastructure, including COSM-OS, an operating system developed by VERSES, which allows the governance of the behaviour of autonomous drones flying over urban areas. 

HTCE also collaborated with drone operators, DroneQ and Airhub, mapture.ai, and with service partners Trigion, Eurest, Swiss Post Solutions and Disc.

With the data gathered from the results of these demonstrations, FF2020 partners can improve their technology, which will be further tested in other living labs in the cities of Milan, Tartu, Zaragoza and Oulu.

To learn more about the FF2020 project, events or to become part of the UAM ecosystem, please visit www.ff2020.eu. For more information about the demonstrations taking place on HTCE, go to https://www.hightechcampus.com/ff2020. For media inquiries about FF2020, please get in touch with Nathy Ercol at nathy@digie.expert.

About Flying Forward 2020

Flying Forward 2020 (FF2020) is a three-year research and innovation project funded by the European Union, under grant agreement number 101006828. The project focuses on creating a state of the art Urban Air Mobility (UAM) ecosystem for autonomous drone missions. It includes a governance model and framework, a regulatory framework, a geospatial digital infrastructure, a Digital Toolbox, an Identity of Things (IDoT) scheme, and several interoperability frameworks. The solutions developed during the project will be tested in five living labs across Europe: Eindhoven, Milan, Zaragoza, Tartu and Oulu. For more information, visit www.ff2020.eu.