Atypical Airspace BVLOS Solution (AABS)

Lead Participant: SEESAI LIMITED

Abstract

Autonomous flight is a general purpose technology with enormous commercial potential.

As a result a lot of resources are being put into solving for Logistics and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM).

We want to provide these companies with the world's most advanced solution for autonomous unmanned flight and we took the first steps in FFP2\.

In FFP2 the consortium led by [sees.ai][0] has developed a technology that enables BVLOS flights on demand, at low altitude and close to obstacles.

In our system the Pilot designs the mission; our UAS senses and maps the world in 3D using Lidars and Cameras, allowing it to fly autonomously close to and amongst infrastructure. The 3D map is sent in real-time to the pilot who supervises the mission remotely for safety.

This technology provided the necessary safety and risk mitigations that allowed us to obtain the first authorisation for routine BVLOS approved by the CAA. Although the system is designed to work in any congested area (including urban) the authorisation is limited to a number of predefined industrial sites in which we will build our safe flight record.

In FFP3 we are pushing the technology and our operational safety case to extend our current capabilities to:

* Enable Atypical Airspace (AA) BVLOS inspection of assets in the public domain by:
* Advancing the capabilities of our DAA (Detect and Avoid System) so it can detect vehicles and people on the ground and any approaching aircraft
* Embedding our operations into the wider aviation ecosystem by integrating them into a commercial UTM system.
* Developing a system that can provide comms between UAS and pilot in areas with poor or no 4G/5G coverage.
* Leveraging our advanced spatial awareness and our integration into the aviation ecosystem to create a solid Concept of Operations that will allow us to obtain one of the world's first approvals for AA-BVLOS.
* Enable a pilot to control multiple UAS, an important step towards increasing the efficiency and scalability of UAS operations. We will also be aiming to be one of the first companies to obtain regulatory authorisation to fly multiple UAS simultaneously in AA.

With these advancements our consortium will be hoping to contribute to the BVLOS infrastructure of the future.

At the end of the project we will have a number of systems that will be tried and tested and ready to be deployed regularly by our clients.

[0]: http://sees.ai/

Lead Participant

Project Cost

Grant Offer

SEESAI LIMITED £983,505 £ 688,454
 

Participant

BT GROUP PLC £147,356 £ 73,678
NATIONAL GRID ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION PLC £13,741
LIVELINK AEROSPACE LTD £290,576 £ 203,403
LANCASHIRE FIRE AND RESCUE SERVICE £19,707
DSCIENCE LTD £46,915 £ 32,840
ACROSS SAFETY DEVELOPMENT LTD £83,842 £ 58,689
NETWORK RAIL LIMITED
IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON £82,201 £ 82,201
TERRA DRONE LTD £59,994 £ 41,996

Publications

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